
Class _BX£^ 33 
Book._^&-3lx 



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COPYRJGHT DEPOSIT. 



ISMS, FADS gf FAKES 



ISMS, DS£s? FAKES 

A S JAY NIGHT DISCOURSES 



By 

EWTON FIELD 



tt P, 



things ; hold fast that 
good."— Paul. 

spirits, whether they 
tod."— John. 



, . > 



LLENBECK PRESS 

DIANAPOLIS 



ISMS, FADS & FAKES 

A SERIES OF SUNDAY NIGHT DISCOURSES 



By 

JASPER NEWTON FIELD 



' Prove all things ; hold fast that 
which is good." — Paul. 

' Prove the spirits, whether they 
are of God." — Joh?i. 



THE HOLLENBECK PRESS 

INDIANAPOLIS 



"BX(*333 



5S 

Two Copies Received 

MAR 17 1904 

S Copyright Entry 
CLASS cC XXc. Mo. 

ink* 

' COPY 3 



Copyright 1904 
V. Ernest Field 

Published in March, 1904 



• •*! •*! •"• t *i •*• •*• ••; •"« 



FOREWORD 

These discourses were prepared and delivered 
to my own congregation, with no thought of pub- 
lication. It is not because I feel that I have any- 
superior wisdom on these subjects to offer the 
world, but out of deference to the urgent re- 
quests of many friends, that I have consented to 
their appearance in permanent form. 

In a spirit of kindness and with a willingness 
to accept all that is good in any ism, these sub- 
jects have been considered. It is my sincere de- 
sire that they may be received in the same spirit, 
and that they may contribute to the cause of 
truth. 

J. N. Field. 

First Baptist Church, 

Fort Wayne, Indiana. 



CONTENTS 

Page 
Mormonism, or the so-called "Latter-day Saints" 9 

Spiritualism, or the Art of Magic 22 

Dowieism, or the Modern Elijah ; the Man and his 

Message 38 

Eddyism, or Some Facts about Christian Science. . . 52 

Mammonism, or the Mad Race for Money 68 

Agnosticism, or Doubt as to the Existence of God. . . 81 

Materialism, or the Great Delusion 96 

Socialistic Secularism, or the Order of Christ's King- 
dom Reversed 108 

Anarchism, or Rebellion Against Law 122 

Buddhism, or the Light of Asia and the Light of the 

World 135 

Mohammedanism, or the Crescent and the Cross.. . . 149 

Pessimism, or the Mystery of Suffering 162 

Optimism, or the Bright Side of Life and Death. . . . 174 

Universalism, or a Dangerous Presumption 185 

Indifferentism, or Criminal Neglect 199 

Conservatism, or Back to our Bibles 210 



MORMONISM, 

Or, The So-Called Latter-Day Saints. 

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, 
fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. And no 
marvel; for even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel 
of light. 2 Cor. 11:13-14, R. V. 

For of these are they that creep into houses, and take 
captive silly women laden with sins, led away by divers 
lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the 
knowledge of the truth. 2 Tim. 3 :6-7, R. V. 

THE age of intolerance has passed. Ours 
is a land of unrestricted religious liberty. 
We have come to believe that it is each man's in- 
alienable right to follow the dictates of his con- 
science. But, conscience or no conscience, a man 
can not stand on a hole in the ground, nor should 
he be permitted to stand on a foundation that is 
morally rotten. When it comes to this, that a 
society springs up in this land of liberty whose 
teaching and practice are a violation of the laws 
of God and of the laws of society, and whose 
spirit is antagonistic to the government, it is 
time to draw the line, even though that society 
calls itself a church of Christ, which is evidently a 
misnomer. It seems that these texts, written by 
divine inspiration, were intended for the self- 



io ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

styled apostles of the so-called Mormon Church. 
The Bible is a book of far-reaching wisdom. It 
rightly divides the word of truth. It gives to 
every man his portion. 

Concerning the origin and history of this soci- 
ety, which goes under the name of a church, let 
us briefly refresh our memories. 

Origin of Mormonism. — In the little town of 
Manchester, N. Y., in 1830, Mormonism was 
brought to the light of day. It had its origin in 
the not too fertile brain of one Joseph Smith, 
whose parents were shiftless and suspected by 
their neighbors of dishonest deeds. Joseph's 
mother was a fortune teller, who doubtless taught 
her son the tricks of the trade. It is claimed that 
early in life this Joseph dreamed wonderful 
dreams and saw visions, and that heavenly mes- 
sengers visited him, among whom were Peter, 
James and John. These apostles of our Lord, 
who had been received up into heaven and 
crowned, it is claimed, came down to earth again 
and selected this said Joseph to be a prophet of 
God, to be the founder of the Mormon Church, 
to appoint its officers and to administer its ordi- 
nances. It would seem that Peter, James and 
John might have made a wiser selection, had they 
looked the community over. Furthermore, it is 
claimed that said Joseph was directed by one Mo- 
roni to dig in a certain hill, where he would cer- 
tainly find some metal plates on which were en- 



MORMONISM ii 

graved some curious characters which he was to 
translate, and from which he was to make a new 
Bible. 

In 1 83 1, said Joseph Smith, with his thirty fol- 
lowers, came to Kirtland, Ohio, where he intend- 
ed to make his headquarters. But the good people 
of that little Ohio town did not take kindly to 
Joseph and his flock. Consequently they were 
compelled to move on, and on they moved to 
Jackson County, Missouri. Here the good people 
liked him no better than the people in Ohio. In 
1838 he settled in Illinois, building up the town 
of Nauvoo, where he intended permanently to es- 
tablish himself. But here he became so offensive 
and so immoral that he was arrested and put into 
the Carthage jail. So enraged was public senti- 
ment that the jail was attacked, and in the melee 
that ensued both Joseph and his brother Hyrum 
were shot and killed. They have always been 
considered by their followers as martyrs to the 
faith. 

Brigham Young's Advent. — While in Kirtland, 
Ohio, this new society was joined by Brigham 
Young, who, by force of character, became the 
leader of Mormonism. Brigham Young was a 
very different sort of man from Joseph Smith. 
By him the crude system of Smith was rear- 
ranged, improved and greatly strengthened. To 
make a long story short, in 1847 this new leader 
led his followers to Salt Lake City, "the chamber 



12 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

of the hills," where Mormonism became perma- 
nently located. Mr. Young was a strong charac- 
ter, a man of commanding appearance, a man of 
unusual organizing and executive ability. It was 
Young who created in the Mormon Church an ec- 
clesiastical despotism. It was Young who cre- 
ated in this church a system of tithes and revenue 
and co-operative industries by means of which 
he got control of large sums of money. It was 
under the management of this man that large 
areas of barren land were irrigated and made im- 
mensely productive. Consequently, the industrial 
prosperity that sprang up under the hand of 
Brigham became a drawing card to win converts 
to this false system of religion. Brigham Young, 
it is said, had nineteen wives, and children too 
numerous to count, lived like an Oriental prince 
and died a multimillionaire. 

Mormonism on the Inside. — But what shall we 
say of Mormonism as a religious system? What 
do the Mormons believe, teach and practice? 
Careful investigation will reveal to any one the 
fact that this ism looks very different on the in- 
side from what it does on the outside. The 
words of the Master, addressed to a certain class 
in His day, are certainly appropriate to the Mor- 
mons : "Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, 
which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are 
within full of dead men's bones, and of all un- 
cleanliness." Were you to listen to the preaching 



MORMONISM 13 

of the Mormon elders who go around through 
the country with their pious looks and godly pre- 
tensions, preaching the doctrine of repentance, 
faith and obedience, you could hardly distinguish 
them from other preachers of the Gospel. But 
when we get down into the very heart of Mor- 
monism and view it in its true light, we find that 
it takes rank with the darkest and vilest pagan- 
ism known to history. In some features it is 
worse than Mohammedanism. In other features 
it outranks the polytheism of the Greeks and the 
Romans, for, as one has said, "The polytheism 
of the Greeks and Romans was the apotheosis of 
heroes. It deified humanity. But the polytheism 
of Mormonism humanizes and brutalizes the 
Deity. It is a monstrous compound of paganism, 
Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity. 
They have taken some of the crudest elements of 
polytheism and paganism and the vilest elements 
of Mohammedanism, and have incorporated with 
these just enough of Judaism and Christianity to 
give the resulting product somewhat the appear- 
ance of the biblical system." 

Sensual Idea of God. — Now, if you can get 
hold of a society's conception of the object of its 
worship, you have that which gives form and 
color to the whole system. What is the Mormon 
conception of God? In their "Journal of Dis- 
courses" we find it : "God Himself was once as 
we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits en- 



14 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

throned in the heavens." Their idea of God, the 
Father, involves the sensual idea of actual pater- 
nity. They claim that God, in human form, con- 
sorting with Eve, became the father of the human 
race, and, consorting with the Virgin Mary, be- 
came the father of Jesus Christ. They teach that 
Jesus Christ had several wives, and that His seed, 
spoken of in the fifty-third of Isaiah, is to be 
strictly natural sons and daughters and not spir- 
itual children. Mormonism teaches that there 
are many gods. In the "Key of Theology," page 
41, they say: "Gods, angels and men are all of 
one species, one race, one great family. By con- 
sent and authority of the head, any one of these 
gods may create, organize, people, govern, con- 
trol, exalt, glorify and enjoy worlds on worlds, 
and the inhabitants thereof." In one of Joseph 
Smith's sermons he says : "You have got to 
learn how to be gods yourselves, the same as all 
the gods have done before you." By the practice 
of polygamy and obedience to the priesthood of 
the Mormon Church men may become gods, and 
the more wives a man has the greater god he will 
be, and the greater will be his glory in the world 
beyond. 

Heaven a Turkish Harem. — The Mormon con- 
ception of heaven is a place of physical, sensuous 
enjoyment. The saints in heaven, they claim, 
will have bodies of flesh, needing food and rai- 
ment, houses and lands, just as they do here. All 



MORMONISM 15 

social relations shall be the same there as here, 
and the government of heaven shall be the same 
as that of the present Mormon state. In short, 
the Mormon heaven is a Turkish harem, and its 
only reward is boundless license in sensuality. 
You say, Is it possible that these are the concep- 
tions of God and Christ and heaven — so grossly 
materialistic and sensualistic — held by the Mor- 
mons? This, among other things, is what they 
teach. Has Satan ever devised anything more in- 
famous and debasing than this? Even men and 
women in our cities given to licentiousness have 
been taught to think, and doubtless do think, of 
God and Christ as pure and holy, and of heaven 
as being a place of absolute cleanliness. But here 
is a society in our land which makes lust the basis 
of their religious and ethical system, ascribing it 
to their deities, and hence justifying it in them- 
selves. And these people call themselves Latter- 
Day Saints. If these are saints, then deliver me 
from saintliness. This society, calling itself a 
church, has done the cause of Christ a hundred 
times more harm than all the atheism and skep- 
ticism of all time could possibly do. And this 
society, with an existence of only seventy-three 
years, has a membership of over three hundred 
and ten thousand, and controls about one-fifth of 
all the area west of the Mississippi River. It has 
its missionaries in every State of the Union, our 
own included. Its most fruitful fields are said 



16 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

to be New England, the Southern States and the 
extreme West. 

Polygamy Still Practiced. — That polygamy is 
yet practiced by the Mormons, notwithstanding 
the officials of the church solemnly promised the 
government that they would give it up at the 
time Utah was admitted to statehood, abundant 
evidence might be produced did time permit. 
Apostle H. J. Grant a short time ago said: "I 
am a law breaker ; so is Bishop Whitney ; so is 
B. H. Roberts. My wives have brought me only 
daughters. I propose to marry until I get wives 
who will bring me sons." While his case was 
pending before Congress, Roberts said : "Even 
were the church that sanctioned these marriages 
and performed the ceremonies to turn its back 
upon us and say that the marriage is not valid 
now, and that I must give these good and loyal 
women up, I'll be damned if I would." Well, he 
may be, anyway. The present president of the 
Mormon Church, it is claimed, has at least five 
wives and forty-two children. 

A Political Power. — But let us pass to con- 
sider what is even more serious, if possible, than 
the things already considered, namely, the atti- 
tude of Mormonism toward the government. 
Mormonism is more of a political than religious 
power. Dr. Josiah Strong has fittingly said: 
'The people of the United States are more sensi- 
ble of the disgrace of Mormonism than of its dan- 



MORMONISM 17 

ger. Mormonism is not simply a church, but a 
state; an imperium in imperio, ruled by a man 
who is prophet, priest, king and pope, all in one." 
The Mormon Church always has been, and is yet, 
hostile to the government of the United States. 
They bid defiance to laws that conflict with the 
laws of their organization. They deny that the 
government has authority to legislate against po- 
lygamy. They insult the American flag. In one 
of their processions on a stated occasion the flag 
was dragged in the dust and a large banner was 
carried by little girls, on which were inscribed 
the words, "We Will Uphold Polygamy." From 
the beginning until now they have defied the laws 
of the land in so far as they have felt it was safe 
to do so. In volume five, "Journal of Discourses," 
Brigham Young said concerning the United 
States officers sent to Utah by the President to 
govern the Territory : "They say that this is le- 
gal. I say that such a statement is false as hell 
and as rotten as a pumpkin that has been frozen 
seven times and then melted in a harvest sun. 
You might as well tell me that you can make hell 
into a powder house as to tell me that you could 
get an army in here and have peace." In another 
discourse he said : "Before we left Nauvoo, no 
less than two United States Senators came to re- 
ceive a pledge from us that we would leave the 
United States, and then while we were doing our 
best to leave their borders, the poor, low, de- 



18 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

graded curses sent a requisition for five hundred 
of our men to go and fight their battles. That 
was President Polk, and he is now weltering in 
hell with old Zachary Taylor, where the pres- 
ent administrators will soon be if they do not re- 
pent." Many more quotations of like character 
might be made. 

Hostility to Government. — Now, whether such 
statements as these so hostile to the government 
instigated the Mountain Meadows massacre, or 
whether that terrible butchery was done by a di- 
rect command of Brigham Young, we shall prob- 
ably never know ; but it is a fact in history that 
at about that time one hundred and twenty men, 
women and children, on their way to California, 
were murdered under the command of John D. 
Lee, a Mormon in high standing. He was arrest- 
ed and tried in the United States court, found 
guilty and executed. In 1877 we find this same 
spirit of hostility to the government existing in 
the Mormon Church. At the dedication of the 
St. George Temple, Wilford Woodruff, then 
president of the church, prayed in the most vin- 
dictive language for the overthrow of the gov- 
ernment. Among other expressions in that 
prayer, which is on record as a memorable piece 
of Mormon literature, is this: "Grant, O Lord, 
that we may live to see this nation, if it will not 
repent, broken in pieces like a potter's vessel and 
swept from off the face of the earth ;" and by re- 



MORMONISM 19 

penting he evidently meant that it should take its 
hands off the Mormon Church. 

Attitude of Reed Smoot. — But, you say, give 
us something more recent. What is the attitude 
of the church to-day? It is just what it always 
has been. Let me quote from a pamphlet just 
out, published by the Utah Americans, the title 
of which is, "The Inside of Mormonism." In 
this pamphlet I find such statements as these: 
"The Mormon Church is an oath-bound, disloyal 
and despotic organization. It is in essence a gov- 
ernment separate and distinct from the United 
States and not subordinate to it nor consistent 
with it. It has its own legislative, executive and 
judicial system complete." Another statement is 
this : "The rule or government of this people is 
administered by co-ordinate quorums of oath- 
bound officials, who are absolute in their author- 
ity, having no constitution to limit or define their 
power. The first quorum consists of the prophet, 
seer and revelator, and his two counselors. The 
second quorum, which is co-ordinate with the 
first, consists of the twelve apostles, who are also 
prophets, seers and revelators. To this second 
quorum belongs Senator-elect Reed Smoot." I 
have quoted at length from this recent pamphlet 
because it is regarded as a very strong and relia- 
ble authority. 

Now, I maintain that such an institution is a 
menace to the government. The danger arising 



20 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

from this source, of course, may be remote. But 
the authority of this institution is already su- 
preme in Utah, holds the balance of power in 
Idaho, Nevada and Arizona, and controls, it is 
claimed, eight votes in the Senate. In view of 
the teachings, practice and character of this in- 
stitution, an institution that violates the laws of 
God and of society as a pretended religious duty, 
an institution which recognizes no authority on 
earth, temporal or spiritual, superior to itself, an 
institution to which its members owe supreme al- 
legiance, who are permitted to obey the laws of 
the land and support the constitution only when 
they do not conflict with its own will, an institu- 
tion which has dragged the holy names of God 
and Christ into the realms of sensuality and lust 
— I ask you, is Mr. Reed Smoot, who hails from 
this darkest spot in our country, a proper man 
to have a seat in the United States Senate? 

Mr. Smoot himself may be a clean man. But 
he represents an unclean and hostile society. He 
is, unfortunately, in bad company. 

Our Present Duty. — A few years ago the good 
people of our land, law-abiding citizens, lovers of 
liberty and purity, rose in their might and maj- 
esty and shut the doors of Congress against Brig- 
ham H. Roberts and sent him back to the place 
whence he came. Smoot in the Senate would be 
a more dangerous man than Roberts would have 
been in Congress. May we not hope that such a 



MORMONISM 21 

wave of public opinion will sweep down upon 
Washington from east and west, north and 
south, as will carry Mr. Smoot so far from the 
Senate that he will never see it again, so long as 
he remains a Mormon? 

Already thousands of petitions have been sent 
to Washington concerning the wishes of our 
virtue-loving and patriotic people, and thousands 
more are to be sent. In the name of all that is 
sacred and pure, in the interests of home, church 
and native land, in co-operation with the best peo- 
ple in this great Republic, who are intensely in- 
terested in the question now pending at Washing- 
ton, I call upon every voter here to-night to sign 
the petition for the unseating of Senator-elect 
Reed Smoot; not because of any antipathy 
against the man, but because of the institution 
from which he hails ; an institution not only mor- 
ally offensive (causing us even to blush before 
the nations), but hostile to the government. 



SPIRITUALISM, 
Or, The Art of Magic. 

When thou art come unto the land which the Lord 
thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the 
abominations of those nations. There shall not be 
bound among you any one that maketh his son or his 
daughter to pass through the fire or that useth divina- 
tion, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a 
witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, 
or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these 
things are an abomination unto the Lord; and because 
of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive 
them out before thee. Deuteronomy 18 :9-i2. 

And when they shall say unto you, seek unto them 
that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep 
and that mutter : Should not a people seek unto their 
God? For the living to the dead? To the law and 
to the testimony. If they speak not according to this 
word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 
8:19-20. 

And he said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the 
prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one 
rose from the dead. Luke 16:31. 

THERE always has been and probably will be 
to the end of time a world of the marvelous 
bordering on the land of spirits. Almost from 
the dawn of history to the present time there have 
been some morbidly inquisitive souls who have 



SPIRITUALISM 23 

ventured to touch the boundaries between the 
world of matter and the world of spirit, in the 
anxious hope that they might hear the footfalls of 
departed spirits and learn from them what is to 
be the future of the life that now is, and what 
constitutes the wonders of the hereafter. 

Reality of the Invisible. — That there is a world 
of spirits as well as of mortals, I trust we all be- 
lieve. Most heartily do I agree with those who 
call themselves Spiritualists in the doctrine of the 
existence of spirit as distinct from matter. The 
Bible abounds in the doctrine of the reality of the 
spiritual and invisible. It also abounds in the 
doctrine that the spiritual and invisible can be 
seen only through the eye of the soul. Paul says : 
"While we look not at the things which are seen, 
but at the things which are not seen; for the 
things which are seen (that is, with the natural 
eye) are temporal. But the things which are not 
seen (with the natural eye) are eternal." Do you 
call to mind the experience of Elisha the prophet 
and the young man who was with him, when they 
were surrounded by the Syrian army? "And 
when the servant of the man of God was risen 
early, and gone forth, behold an host compassed 
the city both with horses and chariots. And his 
servant said unto him : Alas, my master, how 
shall we do? And he answered, fear not, for 
they that be with us are more than they that be 
with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, 



24 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see. And 
the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and 
he saw ; and behold the mountain was full of 
horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." 
It "was a spiritual host sent of God for the protec- 
tion of His own. There is no doubt in my mind 
that good spirits and bad spirits come rushing 
into this mundane sphere, though unseen by the 
natural eye, influencing us in one way or another. 
The apostle, in his letter to the Ephesians, says : 
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spir- 
itual wickedness in high places." 

Yes, the air is tremulous with the march of 
spiritual battalions. We believe in the existence 
and in the ministrations of spirits. It is really 
amusing to read the literature of the Spiritualists 
— books, pamphlets, magazines and papers — to 
see how they labor under the impression that they 
are the only ones who believe in spirits and spir- 
itual influences. This has been the belief and 
teaching of the churches of Christ from the be- 
ginning until now. 

The Possibility of Communion with the World 
of Spirits. — There is another thing in connection 
with spiritualism that we believe, namely, the 
possibility of communion with the world of spirits 
and of the return of the departed. But the return 
of the departed is always under conditions deter- 



SPIRITUALISM 25 

mined by the Almighty God Himself. We know 
that Moses and Elias did come back and appeared 
with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration and 
talked with Him concerning the great events of 
the cross. When Christ rose from the dead, 
many of the saints came with Him, and were 
seen, not at dark seances, but in Jerusalem. Laz- 
arus came back in response to the call of Him in 
whose hands was placed all power, both in heaven 
and on earth. The young man was commanded 
to return and reinhabit the body on the bier, and 
he returned, not to disappear behind the curtain, 
but to remain with and comfort a sorrowing 
widow's heart. In every instance in which Christ 
called back the dead, it was not to gratify morbid 
curiosity, but to serve some specific and impor- 
tant end. Other Bible instances might be cited. 
But these are sufficient to show that there are 
certain phenomena associated with spiritualism in 
which we all believe ; and phenomena, too, which 
belong not to spiritualism, but to Christianity. 

But when the Spiritualists declare their belief 
that disembodied spirits can and do communicate 
with the living, especially through the agency of 
a person particularly susceptible to spiritualistic 
influences, called a medium ; and when they claim 
that spiritualism is not necessarily inconsistent 
with the maintenance of a faith otherwise Chris- 
tian, and that spiritual communications are prov- 
idential interventions for the purpose of inculcat- 



26 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

ing the doctrine of immortality and counteract- 
ing the materialistic tendencies of the times, then 
we must part company with them. And when it 
comes to the movements of various objects, such 
as tables, chests and chairs, and rappings, scratch- 
ings and drummings and the transportation of 
possessed persons, then we are constrained to call 
it, as the Bible does, "an abomination unto the 
Lord." 

Spiritualism Is Not New, Nor Has It Given 
Any Nezv Truth to the World. — Spiritualism has 
never given to the world one new truth of re- 
ligion, one new truth about God and Christ and 
immortality. It has never given to the world one 
new thought about art or history or science ; it 
has never led one sinner to the Savior, has never 
sent one missionary to heathen lands to tell the 
story of Jesus' love. The astronomers, not the 
Spiritualists, have called our attention to the new 
stars. The Raphaels, not the Spiritualists, have 
opened up to us the treasures of art. The Son of 
God and the one Great Spirit, the Holy Spirit, 
not the Spiritualists, have opened to us the gate 
of heaven and brought life and immortality to 
light. 

Spiritualists are always talking about spiritual- 
ism being new, having been born in Hydesville, 
N. Y., in 1847, m the home of the Fox sisters. 
The fact is, it is older than the oldest mummy in 
Egypt. The Brahmins held seances, made tables 



SPIRITUALISM 27 

dance and heard rappings thousands of years ago. 
Homer (1000 B. C.) tells of the spiritualistic 
practices of the Greeks. Three thousand years 
ago, Saul, the rejected King of Israel, in the utter 
desperateness of despair, consulted the witch of 
Endor ; he was just in the right state of mind to 
be deluded, and was, and went to destruction. 
He did not see Samuel, but the medium made him 
believe that she did. All the early Christian 
writers, Cyprian, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, tell 
us of the art of magic and the tricks of necro- 
mancers in their time. Even John, in the book of 
Revelation, describes and denounces the Nicolai- 
tans and Gnostics, Spiritualists of the first cen- 
tury. Spiritualism new ? As one has said, "Call 
it by whatever name you please, belomancy, nec- 
romancy, chiromancy, pyromancy, acromancy, it 
is as old as Satan himself." 

Fraud and Humbug. — Spiritualism is a decep- 
tion and a delusion. It is a cheat and giant fraud. 
I believe there are some good people among the 
Spiritualists. I believe some are honest in their 
convictions. But I do not believe any spiritual- 
istic medium or any other kind of a medium ever 
has or ever will call back from eternity a disem- 
bodied spirit, save Christ, the one mediator be- 
tween God and man. If the mediums do call up 
the dead, as they claim to do in their dark se- 
ances, why don't they go farther and bring them 
out into the light of day and let us see them, as 



28 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

our Lord did with those whom He called back 
from the spirit world. When the Spiritualists do 
that, I shall believe that they can and do get re- 
ports from the dead. I shall also gladly welcome 
to this pulpit any one of the saints whom they 
may call back, and see what message he may have 
for us. 

The fact is, this thing has been tested and ex- 
posed so often that discredit is placed on the 
whole system. That Spiritualists can and do ac- 
complish wonders we do not deny. But that 
these wonders can be explained only by recourse 
to the supernatural we do not admit. Trickery, 
ventriloquism, jugglery, magnetism, mesmerism, 
will power and sleight-of-hand explain nine-tenths 
of the cult's so-called manifestations. Thought- 
ful men, even in ancient days, did not hesitate to 
ascribe these marvelous things to trickery, fraud 
or natural causes, the secret of which was con- 
fined to a few initiated persons. Juvenal satirized 
all superhuman communication, and argued that 
belief in their reality was really due to ignorance 
of the nervous principle, which enabled the prac- 
tical fortune-teller to gain a knowledge of thought 
in the minds of those who consulted him. Hor- 
ace ridiculed those who gave heed to spiritual 
manifestations, and characterized them as dis- 
eased and fanatical. Virgil called them the de- 
ranged in intellect, and Pliny attributed the mar- 
vels accomplished to physical causes. And down 



SPIRITUALISM 29 

through the centuries thoughtful and scientific 
men, having investigated the phenomena of spir- 
itualism, have pronounced it a deception and a 
delusion. 

Sets of Fakers. — Do you call to mind that re- 
ported strange materialization that took place in 
Philadelphia a few years ago ? Hands, it is said, 
which shone like phosphorus, appeared, and did 
not seem to be attached to anybody ; and the al- 
leged spirit who came most frequently from the 
cabinet was clothed in shining raiment that re- 
minded Mr. Owen of the Savior's transfiguration. 
Before all eyes this phantom faded away or was 
seen to float in the air. During many sittings, it 
is reported, Mr. Owen and a Dr. Childs applied 
every test to determine the real character of the 
phenomenon. Yet this most remarkable Katie 
King affair turned out to be a fraud. The decep- 
tion was admitted, and when the means were pro- 
duced by which it was effected, they were found 
to be very simple. 

Spiritualists tell us if we would only go to 
seances and carefully investigate the subject, we 
would surely be convinced. I have tried to make 
an honest investigation ; have read more of their 
books, magazines, pamphlets and papers than I 
could carry in my arms ; I have gone farther than 
this, as I shall show later on, and I confess I am 
farther from accepting their claims than when I 
began to make a careful study of the matter. I 



30 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

have talked with more than a score of intelligent, 
honest, fair-minded people who have made spirit- 
ualism a study, and they pronounce it a humbug. 
Two of the most prominent men in Fort Wayne 
will vouch for this, that they have gone to trum- 
pet seances and called for living persons, the me- 
dium, of course, under the impression that the 
persons called for were in eternity, and they have 
gotten answers and talked with them through the 
trumpet. One of these men told me he talked 
with a friend through the trumpet for twenty 
minutes, that person then living, and living yet, 
and the medium was then, and is yet, under the 
impression that he was made to believe he was 
actually talking with a departed friend. That 
looks very much like a give-away. Dr. D. B. 
Purinton, formerly president of Denison Univer- 
sity, told me a few years ago that his brother was 
at a seance at Lily Dale, the headquarters of spir- 
itualism in the State of New York. At that 
seance the departed son of a widow was called 
up, the curtain drawn back a little, and there he 
stood in plain view. The people were wild with 
excitement. The mother of the resurrected son 
started toward him, but fainted and fell to the 
floor before she touched his hand. There hap- 
pened to be present a professor, Levette, a daring 
fellow, who started for the materialized spirit and 
reached out his hand to shake hands, when the 
spirit warned him that it would be dangerous for 



SPIRITUALISM 31 

him to come nearer ; but on he went, the spirit 
withdrew and the curtain dropped. There are 
other thoroughly reliable instances of brave per- 
sons who are no more afraid of spirits disem- 
bodied than embodied, who have succeeded in 
catching them and have found them to be quite 
material, consisting of flesh and bones, like beings 
of this mundane sphere. Spiritualists claim to 
have called up Henry Ward Beecher. They 
asked him if he had any regret for his conduct 
during this life. "I have only one/' was the re- 
ply; "I regret that I opposed my sister when she 
wanted to join the Spiritualists." They claim to 
have called up Shakespeare, Webster and Bacon, 
all of whom seem to have lost their reasoning 
powers since they departed this life and indulged 
in silly conversation, totally unlike their former 
selves. Think of what these great men and oth- 
ers like them were while on earth ; but now they 
are upsetting chairs, making tables dance, pound- 
ing doors, muttering bad English behind curtains 
to fill the pockets of frauds. Imps, witches, 
ghosts, clairvoyants, mediums, are humbugs. I 
know they do not like this name, but none fits 
them better. A Methodist minister in an eastern 
State, an acquaintance of mine, dressed in wom- 
an's clothes and went to a seance. The medium 
called up his mother, who told him he would 
marry wealthy and be the mother of nine chil- 
dren. His mother is yet living in our own State 



32 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

of Indiana, hale and happy at the age of seventy- 
five. 

Personal Investigations. — Some of you know I 
was in Buffalo during the past week. After hav- 
ing attended to the matters that made it necessary 
for me to go there, I had a little spare time, and 
consequently decided to have a bit of personal ex- 
perience with spiritualistic performances. 

First, I went to a scientific astrologer and mind 
reader, who is also a medium. He told me that 
one of my distinguishing characteristics was in- 
dependence. He said that I loved the beautiful ; 
beautiful pictures and beautiful women, and 
asked me if this was so. I said, yes, sir. Why 
not? Nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of 
every thousand do. Anybody could guess that. 
He then said that I had had domestic trouble for 
the past several years, and that he could see fore- 
bodings of the breaking up of my home. All of 
you who know the facts in the case know that I 
have one of the happiest homes on earth. Well, 
I got nothing from the mind reader. In the even- 
ing of that same day I went to the Spiritualist 
temple, heard one of their celebrated lecturers of 
Chicago, and after the lecture witnessed a test 
seance by one of Buffalo's mediums. The most 
remarkable thing that occurred at that seance was 
this : The medium came down the aisle where I 
was sitting, and I thought, surely the lightning is 
going to strike me. I hoped it would, but it 



SPIRITUALISM 33 

struck the man just in front of me, a young, un- 
married man. She said to him: "Sir, I am di- 
rected to you by the spirit of one of your little 
children. Do you recognize the child? Have 
any of your children been called from you into 
eternity?" "No, ma'am, none that I know of," 
was the reply. "I had a little brother, however, 
who died a few years ago." "Oh, that is the 
spirit, then, that I see," said the medium. The 
next forenoon I went to Buffalo's most celebrated 
trance medium. She went into what they call a 
trance, called up her guiding star and began. 
The spirits came from the eternal world. She 
said: "One of the spirits says you have made 
vast sums of money and have lost vast sums of 
money, and now you are on the eve of making 
vast sums of money." Had she known I was a 
preacher she never would have said that. She 
wanted to know if this was true. I said, "No, 
ma'am." "Well, that is what the spirit tells me." 
She then said : "I see the spirits of four of your 
children who are coming with messages for you. 
Do you recognize them ?" "No, ma'am ; I have 
never lost a child yet." After making several 
more mistakes, she came back, as she called it, 
and said : "Mr., this is the first time I have ever 
failed to get something from the spirit world. 
You are mediumistic yourself; you have a tre- 
mendous amount of magnetism, and, more than 
that, you have hypnotic power ; I can not get en 



34 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

rapport with you ; you have made me nervous 
and the spirits have fled." I am giving you ex- 
actly what she said. Well, as I went out, I never 
felt so cheap in my life, and I said to myself, if I 
had a yellow dog that would make it a habit to 
run around after these necromancers, I would 
feel like shooting him. 

No Consolation In It. — And yet they tell us 
there is great consolation in spiritualism, in be- 
ing able to call back our loved ones and getting 
messages from them. 

There lived in the community where I was 
raised a husband and wife who did not get along 
well together. They quarreled from the start to 
the finish. The wife was a regular tartar. She 
hounded him to death. On the day of his funeral 
she wept as if her heart would break. At the 
grave she shed crocodile tears. In a few days she 
went to a seance and wanted her beloved one 
called up. The medium complied with the re- 
quest. "Here he is. You can talk with him." 
She wept, named some of his good points, and 
then ventured to say : "John, are you there ?" 
The answer came, "I am." She wept again and 
said, "John, are you happy?" The answer came, 
"I am." She wept again and said, "John, are you 
happier than when you lived with me?" The an- 
swer came, "I am." She wept again and ven- 
tured one more question : "John, where are you, 
anyway?" "In hell," was the reply. There was. 



SPIRITUALISM 35 

not much consolation in that. Some of you will 
remember that a few years ago America waited 
for days for the overdue steamer LaBourgogne. 
A woman whose husband was on board went to a 
medium and was told that the steamer had gone 
down, with all on board. The wife that night be- 
came a raving maniac, and in an unguarded mo- 
ment cut her throat. Finally the news flashed 
the arrival of the steamer. For several days she 
had floated with disabled engines, but at last 
reached shore with all on board. That husband 
came to the grave of his wife and charged spirit- 
ualism with her murder. There was not much 
consolation in that. These necromancers have 
separated husbands and wives and have sent 
scores of people to the insane asylum. 

Now, if I have said some hard things, remem- 
ber they have not been directed against the people 
who have been deluded, some of whom are good, 
honest people, but against the ism itself, which 
the Bible condemns in the severest terms. If 
time permitted, I would like to show that spirit- 
ualism is anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Bible, anti- 
Christian and anti-common sense. Absurdity is 
written on its very face. Worse than this, it de- 
thrones God, it denies the divinity of Christ, the 
fall, the atonement, the necessity for salvation ; it 
sweeps away the whole revealed plan of salvation. 
Here is a quotation from one of their magazines : 
"Human history furnishes no other example of 



36 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

failure so gigantic as that which has formed the 
record of the orthodox church. The church to- 
day stands self-convicted of stupendous failure 
to convert the world, to renovate society or to 
comfort humanity." Lock the doors of all the 
churches in Fort Wayne, Catholic and Protestant, 
and keep them locked for six years, and imagine 
what the result would be. Here is another quota- 
tion : "Spiritualism has done more for humanity 
than all the other religions put together. The 
Old Testament writers mostly inclined to the be- 
lief that the grave was the end of man, and the 
New Testament gives no definite idea on the most 
important of all subjects. It remained for spirit- 
ualism to settle this much-discussed question and 
to place it forever beyond doubt and contro- 
versy." That is rather a broad statement. You 
can take it for what it is worth. 

God's Word is Sufficient. — In closing this dis- 
cussion, let us hear the words of our Lord : "If 
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither 
will they be persuaded though one rose from the 
dead." Here are the words of God to direct us. 
To the heart that believes, the Book is full of the 
divinest, holiest teaching. It abounds with prom- 
ises that will clear life's gloom and chase away 
the darkness even from the grave. It opens to us 
the door into eternity. It assures our hearts that 
death does not end all. "As I live, ye also shall 
live," said the Master, who has the key to im- 



SPIRITUALISM 37 

mortality ; "I go to prepare a place for you." We 
are not treading uncertainly. We walk not at 
random. We are not helplessly drifting down a 
current. Heavenward and homeward is the trend 
of the children of God. There is light on our 
path from Him who is the light of the world. 
Can we not wait awhile and let Him who is re- 
deeming us reveal to us the mysteries of the spirit 
world in His own time and way? Mother, it is 
enough for me to know thou art in glory with 
Him whom thou didst love so much and serve so 
well. I would not call thee back, even if I could. 
Loved one, thou art gone from earth, but I know 
thou art happy and holy. You can not come back 
to me, but I can go to thee, and, God helping me, 
I will. "Lead, kindly light, one step enough for 
me." This is the Christian's hope. Hush those 
longings to know beforehand. Let us keep to the 
written Word. Be it ours to study the Book of 
God ; to take it not only as a guide, but as the 
only and all-sufficient guide, "Until the day break 
and the shadows flee away." 



DOWIEISM, 

Or; The Modern Elijah ; the Man and His 
Message. 

For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, 
and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that 
if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect. 
Matthew 24 124. 

Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's 
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye 
shall know them by their fruits. Matthew 7:15-16. 

This know also, that in the last days perilous times 
shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, 
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to 
parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, 
truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, de- 
spisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high- 
minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; 
having a form of Godliness, but denying the power 
thereof; from such turn away. Timothy 3:15. 

DOCTOR John Alexander Dowie is one of 
the strangest characters in history. That 
he is a man of unusual, even marvelous, power, 
no matter whence received nor how applied, there 
can be no doubt. His creed is not so difficult to 
understand as the man himself. He is a phe- 
nomenon in current religious life that can not be 
ridiculed or laughed out of court by the pulpit or 



DOWIEISM 39 

press. Some there are who think him crazy. But 
not so. He is one of the shrewdest men in all the 
land. He is no fool, though he has made fools of 
others. He is a man of some intellectual attain- 
ments. While not a scientist of the first order, 
he knows something about science. He has some 
knowledge of the Bible, theology, medicine and 
law. He finds pleasure in argument. His ability 
to get into difficulty and his apparent enjoyment 
of it reminds one of the Irishman who, "when 
coming up the Alississippi river on a steamboat, 
seeing a free fight occurring on the banks, asked 
the captain to put out the gang-plank and let him 
take a hand. When he returned, somewhat bat- 
tered and bruised, he said that he had not had 
such a good time since he left old Ireland." Doc- 
tor Dowie does not seem to have spent much 
time poring over Romans 12 :i8. "If it be possi- 
ble, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with 
all men." He used to get himself arrested about 
twice a week on an average. Of his personal ap- 
pearance, which wears the aspect of benevolence 
and looks the patriarch, he is extremely vain. He 
keeps the photographers of Zion City busy by his 
constant posing before the camera. He is anx- 
ious that we shall not forget how he looks. But 
that is business. 

The Mysterious Dowie. — Thus strangely en- 
dowed personality, somewhat mysterious in his 
origin, though not so mysterious as that of Elijah 



40 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

of Old Testament times, seems to have made his 
first advent in Edinburgh, Scotland, some fifty- 
six years ago. At the age of thirteen he went to 
Australia, where, later on, he served as pastor of 
a Congregational Church with doubtful success. 
When he found public opinion hostile to his man- 
ner and methods, he came to the United States in 
1888 by way of California. From 1888 to 1893 
his work was that of a strolling evangelist. It 
was during this period of his life that these words 
came to him like an inspiration: "In my name 
shall they cast out devils. They shall lay hands 
on the sick and they shall recover." Immediately 
he laid hands on his wife's head, prayed and 
cured her of headache, and then, as a wit would 
have it, "He began to lay hands on everybody 
and everything else." 

He made his appearance in Chicago at the time 
of the World's Fair, where he found a magnifi- 
cent opportunity to get himself started in busi- 
ness. Through the assistance of his friends, who 
were at this time under his influence, he suc- 
ceeded in opening a small, crude tabernacle near 
the entrance to the fair grounds, and there he be- 
gan operations alongside of the other circus fea- 
tures of the Exposition, and outdid them all in 
drawing crowds of the credulous and in making 
them pay dearly for their credulity. This is evi- 
dent in view of the fact that at the time of the 
World's Fair, only ten years ago, "he was as poor 



DOWIEISM 41 

as a superannuated Baptist minister," and now it 
is claimed he is worth about twenty-three mil- 
lions. The World's Fair did no more for the for- 
tunes of any man than for Mr. Dowie. 

An Up-to-Date Promoter. — From that time on 
he was carried by a wave of material success, 
until finally the Zion City Land and Investment 
Company was incorporated. Six thousand acres 
of land were purchased on Lake Michigan, mid- 
way between Chicago and Milwaukee, or, as 
Dowie expresses it, between "Babel and Beer." 
This land cost one and a quarter millions of dol- 
lars, and was easily paid for by Mr. Dowie him- 
self. This transaction was carried through so 
quickly and quietly that it compels admiration. 
Mr. Dowie is certainly an up-to-date promoter. 
He proposes to sell that land in small lots on long 
leases at fifteen times its original cost. On that 
land there has sprung up already, within two 
years, a town of eight thousand inhabitants — a 
town in which not a saloon, not a doctor, not a 
drug store, not a cigar stand can be found. Ex- 
plain it as we may, thousands of people have lived 
there for two years without medical attendance, 
drugs, or even surgical aid and appliances. But 
we are informed that in that boom town of tithes 
and trickery there have been 1,824 deaths in those 
two years. Nevertheless, here is a man of re- 
markable organizing, executive and hypnotic abil- 
ity ; a man under whose spell thousands of people 



42 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

have turned over their possessions to build this 
town, with its factories and bank and hospital, 
the title of which is said to be in Dowie's name. 

Bowie's Holy Gall. — What manner of man is 
this? He calls himself Elijah the Restorer. Is 
this holy boldness ? Or is it holy gall ? If Dowie 
is the original Elijah who is now revisiting the 
earth, he is mightily changed in his views as to 
the manner of life a prophet ought to lead while 
tabernacling in the flesh. As one has said, "The 
original Elijah, with his hairy mantle wrapping 
him round, his simple fare and his wilderness 
home, had a lofty disdain for the sumptuousness 
of life, and as for scooping money by the mil- 
lions from innocent dupes, to have and to hold 
by him and his heirs — it was a thing that never 
entered into his innocent head. The banking 
business, the silk business, the real estate busi- 
ness, the inveigling of money from unsuspecting 
widows with large fortunes and small wits, and 
laying up treasures for himself on earth in great 
quantities — all this was utterly foreign to the 
spirit of the Elijah of Bible history. The modern 
Elijah is rather a reincarnation of the late unla- 
mented Brigham Young, whom in a score of par- 
ticulars he most closely resembles. He has the 
same commanding presence, the same supreme 
confidence in himself, the same hypnotic con- 
tempt for his dupes, the same assumption of su- 
perior sanctity, the same audacious claim to di- 



DOWIEISM 43 

vine inspiration, the same management of busi- 
ness details, and, above all, the same single eye 
for the almighty dollar." Whether the words of 
our text were intended for Mr. Dowie or not, it 
would be presumption for me to say. They seem, 
however, to fit the case about as snug as a suit 
made to order. "In the last days perilous times 
shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, 
lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, slan- 
derers, without self-control, fierce, headstrong, 
puffed up ; from such turn away." The Bible is 
a wonderful book. It seems to have anticipated 
almost every ism that should spring up in the 
path of the kingdom and has warned us against 
them. 

The Message. — But what is the message of this 
marvelous man? He denounces sin in all its 
forms ; the sins of individuals, the sins of society, 
the sins of the churches. He sees defects every- 
where, even in God Himself. He is no Christian 
Scientist. Sin to him is the most real thing on 
earth, unless it is money. Dowie is certainly an 
Ishmaelite. He sets himself up against the 
churches and their pastors, one and all, in the 
most savage and undiscriminating manner. In 
one of his papers these expressions were found : 
"The Methodist Church is full of pig and oyster 
and full of the devil. The First Methodist 
Church of Chicago would do anything for 
money ; they would sell the Father, and sell the 



44 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

Son, and sell the Holy Ghost." Of the Presby- 
terians he says : "They have gone to the devil, 
too;" and all the other denominations of Chris- 
tians are denounced in the most violent language. 
He would have it understood that he is the great 
power of God. 

But the main point in Mr. Dowie's creed is the 
power of divine healing possessed by himself in a 
marked degree and as a special gift of God. "Di- 
vine healing," he says, "is opposed by diabolical 
counterfeits. Among the counterfeits are Chris- 
tian Science, falsely so called ; mind healing, spir- 
itualism and trance evangelism." He claims that 
all other ministers refuse to believe in divine heal- 
ing in answer to prayer, and that he alone advo- 
cates this doctrine. We all know this is not true. 
We believe that God does answer the prayer of 
His people for healing. From nearly every pul- 
pit in the land prayers are offered Sunday after 
Sunday for the healing of the sick. We are sent 
for and we go to their bedside (not for revenue), 
and pray that the sick may be blessed and re- 
stored. This we do, however, in humble defer- 
ence to God's superior wisdom and holy will. 
But at the same time we believe in using the 
means which experience has shown to be helpful, 
whether it be in medicating a sick body or in feed- 
ing a hungry one. The Bible teaches and encour- 
ages us to pray for the sick that they may be 
healed. But has any one yet pointed out the 



DOWIEISM 45 

chapter and verse where we are told not to make 
use of medicine? May we not pray for God's 
blessing upon the use of means to restore the sick 
as well as upon the use of means to convert the 
world? And is it not divine healing in either 
case ? For who creates the healing remedies and 
who gives the doctor skill but God, who is the 
source of all good? Dowie is not the only one 
who believes that God answers the prayers of His 
people in behalf of the sick, and that often they 
are restored in answer to prayer. But this is not 
the only instance in which he has misrepresented 
the facts in the case. 

Torrey Denounces Dowie. — Let me quote at 
length from Dr. R. A. Torrey, superintendent 
and director of the Moody Bible Institute. Mr. 
Torrey has had much personal knowledge of Mr. 
Dowie and his doings at Zion City, and Torrey is 
recognized the world over as one of the best Bible 
students and as one of the best men in all the 
land. He says : "I know that Mr. Dowie and his 
Leaves of Healing state things which are not 
true." In the issue of Leaves of Healing of No- 
vember ii, 1899, pages 84 and 85, Mr. Dowie 
says : "Mr. Torrey spoke in the highest terms of 
the work here (that is, at Zion), saying that he 
believed in divine healing and that he believed the 
work of Zion was the work of God." This re- 
ported conversation is given with a great deal of 
detail as occurring in Chicago, Friday, Septem- 



46 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

ber 29. Mr. Torrey says : "Such conversation 
never occurred at all. I said nothing of the kind, 
in fact was not in Chicago on that day, and had 
not been for upwards of three months. The al- 
leged testimony and conversation is a downright 
fabrication from beginning to end." Mr. Torrey 
says further: "Mr. Dowie has published in 
Leaves of Healing, and since in tract form, and 
scattered far and wide, a statement that is in- 
tended to produce the impression that one of my 
daughters was healed of sickness in answer to his 
prayers and the prayers of his elders. This is en- 
tirely untrue. Neither Dowie nor his elders knew 
of the sickness of my daughter until she was up 
and around." Mr. Torrey goes on to say : "I 
know Mr. Dowie makes false and slanderous 
statements concerning God's servants. In Leaves 
of Healing, page 394, issue of January 20, 1900, 
Mr. Dowie asserts that D. L. Moody died drunk, 
and those beautiful and pleasant visions that he 
had were the dreams of a drunken man. "I 
know," says Mr. Torrey, "that Mr. Dowie makes 
claims for himself and for his paper that are pre- 
sumptuous and blasphemous." In Leaves of 
Healing, Volume 5, No. 31, page 596, Mr. Dowie 
says : "I have the right to stand here and say in 
Zion, you have to do what I tell you. Oh, the 
whole church, yes, the whole church — Presby- 
terian, Congregational, Baptist, Episcopal. It is 
the most daring thing I ever said. The time has 



DOWIEISM 47 

come. I tell the church universal everywhere, 
you have to do what I tell you, because I am the 
messenger of God's covenant." Every Bible stu- 
dent knows that the messenger of the covenant 
of Mai. 3:1, to whom Dowie refers, is the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Mr. Dowie claims that his paper 
is the word of God. In Leaves of Healing of 
October 23, 1897, pages 830 and 831, he says the 
following things concerning his paper : "We 
have never written a line without the sweet con- 
sciousness of the Highest; and that power also 
entered into us." Of course, this includes the 
falsehoods and slanders of which he has been 
guilty. 

Dowie says : "Leaves of Healing are again be- 
ing written by God. Therefore, these Leaves of 
Healing are God's own work, as much as any of 
the six Gospels preceding." By the six Gospels 
he refers to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts 
and Revelation. He says : "God is writing 
everywhere, and every day, and every week, and 
every year, another Gospel in every way like unto 
all the Gospels that have preceded. The Seventh 
Gospel, Leaves of Healing, is in every respect a 
continuance of the things Jesus began both to do 
and teach. And so we close the volume of the 
book which God has caused us to write in His 
name, and we do so in the words which John, in 
Patmos, used in opening his writings, 'Blessed is 
he that readeth and thev who hear the words of 



48 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

this prophecy and keep those things that are writ- 
ten therein, for the time is at hand.' " Is it not 
time that this blasphemous, slanderous deceiver 
were exposed to the public ? Already the pulpit 
has been silent too long concerning this man, who 
has been and is deceiving poor, .innocent people. 
Gets Money; Fails to Cure. — But, you say, how 
can such mighty works be performed by such a 
man ? Concerning these miracles of healing there 
is much doubt. Dr. P. S. Henson, formerly of 
Chicago, says he could relate more than a score 
of instances that came under his personal knowl- 
edge wherein Mr. Dowie absolutely failed to ef- 
fect cures, though he got the money. One in- 
stance he relates of a poor minister who had only 
a cow. But the cow gave more milk than the 
church he served. The cow was sold for sixty 
dollars. Forty dollars were added to the sixty, 
all of which Mr. Dowie got for trying to improve 
a deformed boy. But the mother returned to her 
home with the boy not a bit better, and, if any- 
thing, worse than before. This is only one of the 
many instances of like character. But even 
granting that Dowie does perform wonderful 
things, they only fulfill the prophecies of our 
Lord, who said, "There shall arise false prophets 
and they shall show great signs and wonders in 
so much that if it were possible they shall deceive 
the very elect." The Master, therefore, recog- 
nized the power of false prophets to do wonders. 



DOWIEISM 49 

"Pharaoh's court swarmed with magicians and 
they vied with Aaron and Moses for a time, but 
failed at the crucial test. There were false pro- 
phets by the score previous to and succeeding 
the advent of Christ, and, as for sorcerers and 
miracle workers, the apostles found them every- 
where." Do you recall the case of Simon the 
sorcerer, mentioned in the eighth chapter of 
Acts, who used sorcery and bewitched the people 
of Samaria, giving out that himself was some 
great one, to whom the people gave heed, from 
the least to the greatest, saying this man is the 
great power of God ? And when Simon saw that 
through laying on of the apostle's hands the Holy 
Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying : 
"Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I 
lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost." But 
Peter said unto him : "Thy money perish with 
thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of 
God may be purchased with money. Thou hast 
neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart 
is not right in the sight of God." Other Bible in- 
stances might be cited. 

Many Dupes Are Left. — But, you say, how can 
a man who speaks so much of the truth of God as 
Dowie does be guilty of such gross error and mis- 
conduct? In answer, let me ask, when did a 
false prophet not come in the guise of God's mes- 
senger? Do you remember the case of Balaam, 
a man used bv the Lord for a time, but who be- 



50 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

came so perversely wicked the Lord used an ass 
to rebuke him ? 

The greatest wonder in this whole matter to 
me is that so many have been drawn into this de- 
lusion, and among them some good people. It is, 
however, largely because the world is full of peo- 
ple yet that can easily be duped. P. T. Barnum 
once said, "The American people like to be hum- 
bugged, and I can humbug them as well as any- 
body else." But if Barnum were here now I 
think he would have to take a back seat. 

Fakes Are Not New. — A man of ability can 
get a following, no matter what he teaches. In 
120 A. D., a society called Adamites spread over 
much of Europe, it is said, and their chief doc- 
trine was this : "Since Adam and Eve were 
naked till after the fall, therefore only he can 
worship God in truth who is nude;" and they 
found hundreds of followers. The Excalceate 
taught that it was a religious duty to go bare- 
footed; and princes and paupers crowded their 
places of worship unshod. In 1654 the world 
was bowing at the feet of the Potatoites, who 
held that the potato was the fruit that Eve gave 
to Adam ; therefore, the sin against the Holy 
Ghost was to eat potatoes. There have been more 
than forty just as absurd religious uprisings as 
these. Is it to be wondered at that there are some 
who are ready to believe that Dowie is the real 
Elijah the Restorer, and hence turn their posses- 



DOWIEISM 51 

sions over to him? But Dowie will hardly pre- 
vail against the church, whose true mission is in 
the realm of spirit rather than matter, the saving 
of souls rather than bodies. The Master says : 
"Beware of false prophets ; ye shall know them 
by their fruits." 



EDDYISM, 
Or, Some Facts About Christian Science. 

Science falsely so-called; which some professing have 
erred concerning the faith, i Tim. 6:20-21. 

And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and 
shall be turned unto fables. 2 Tim. 4:4. 

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that 
called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel; 
which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, 
and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, 
or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto 
you than that which we have preached unto you, let him 
be accursed. Galatians 1 :6-8. 

CHRISTIAN Science is here, and has been 
for thirty-five years, and is deserving of 
thoughtful, serious consideration. Whether it 
has come to stay or not remains to be seen. Is it 
simply a fad? Time will tell. Concerning the 
apostles of our Lord, who had stirred up a com- 
motion in Jerusalem by preaching the truth, one 
Gamaliel, you remember, said to the council that 
had decided to put them to death : "Refrain 
from these men and let them alone, for if this 
council or this work be of men it will come to 
naught, but if it be of God ye can not overthrow 
it." What did Gamaliel advise the council to do ? 
To refrain from persecution, to refrain from put- 



EDDYISM 53 

ting these men to death. He was too wise a man, 
however, to advise his fellow-citizens to refrain 
from an investigation of the new doctrine, the 
teaching itself. So say we of Christian Scien- 
tists. The days of religious persecution and in- 
tolerance, thank God, have gone by. These peo- 
ple have just as good a right to their opinions as 
we have to ours. This is a land of unrestricted 
religious liberty. And by reason of this fact we 
claim the right to investigate this or any other 
ism that springs up in the path of the kingdom, 
and see if it will stand the test of truth. 

Christian Science is here as a fact. It must be 
considered. Why do we not consider Presbyteri- 
anism, Congregationalism, Methodism, and so on, 
you ask? Because all the evangelical churches 
are united on the great fundamental doctrines 
of Christianity. It is more of a marvel that they 
are thus united on the great essentials than that 
they differ on some things not so essential. But 
Christian Science differs not only from one, but 
from all the evangelical churches, and not only so, 
the difference is radical. And the people in our 
churches want to know about these things. They 
have a right to expect their pastors, leaders in re- 
ligious thought, to investigate these isms and give 
them the results of their investigations. 

Some Virtues of Christian Science. — Christian 
Science places emphasis on some of the most 
beautiful sayings in the Bible, such as spirit, light, 



54 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

life, love. I have a great deal of respect for a 
people who magnify love. Love is the mightiest 
force in the universe. Round love swing in per- 
petual harmony God's eternal purposes and the 
hopes of humanity. Christian Science empha- 
sizes spirit and makes a mighty protest against 
the intense materialism of the times, all of which 
is good, if it did not go so far as to eliminate the 
material entirely. Christian Science aims to cul- 
tivate a sweet, lovely, gentle, kind disposition. 
There is much of piety, so far as we can judge, 
among these people. That many of them are ex- 
cellent citizens we know. But this does not settle 
the question of truth, for there are other excel- 
lent citizens who make no pretensions to religion 
at all. That there are cultured and intellectual 
people among them we know. But this does not 
settle the question. Colonel Ingersoll was a very 
intelligent man, but he was an infidel. That 
Christian Scientists have effected some cures I 
have no doubt. I believe their treatment is an ex- 
cellent thing for persons who are not very sick. 
Their treatment will do very well for a man who 
is despondent or afflicted with the blues. We all 
know that the mind has a very direct and decided 
influence over the body. There is much in imagi- 
nation. A well-known man in this town was suf- 
fering one night with a felon. He was almost 
wild. His wife made a bread and milk poultice 
and tied it on his hand. He went to bed and soon 



EDDYISM 55 

said: "I feel much better." He went to sleep. 
In the morning when he got up he found the 
poultice was on the wrong hand. So much for 
Christian Science. There is more in Christian 
Science, my friends, than some people are inclined 
to think. The power of mind over body is almost 
unlimited. Depression of spirits causes bilious- 
ness, jealousy poisons the blood, anger will curdle 
a mother's milk, bad news will take away a vora- 
cious appetite, fear paralyzes the heart, fright 
will whiten the hair, a sudden rage will kill. "A 
mother, it is said, screamed and fell dead at the 
sight of a dummy with a stick in hand, which her 
children had dressed up to scare her for fun and 
which she mistook for a burglar." That mother 
fell, thrust through with mind's dagger, not with 
the dagger of a robber. 

Our physicians, I believe, might learn some 
things from Christian Science that would be use- 
ful to them in the practice of medicine. More 
might be made of the power of the mind over the 
body than has been done in the past. Evangelical 
churches, too, are subject to criticism. We have 
not made enough of the doctrine in the Bible con- 
cerning the healing of the body as well as the 
soul. Right here I may mention briefly what I 
understand to be the difference between faith 
healers, Christian Scientists and the so-called or- 
thodox Christians. Faith healers believe that 
God cures disease in answer to prayer without 



56 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

the use of medicine. Christian Scientists cure by 
thought power, or by making the patient believe 
there is nothing the matter with him. The other 
Christians believe — some do, at least — that God 
may cure disease in answer to prayer, with or 
without the use of medicine, according to His 
gracious will. Usually we believe that faith and 
works, prayer and medicine, go together in the 
healing of the sick, as in everything else. But 
there are some notable cases on record, if we 
were disposed to publish them, in the evangelical 
churches, of persons being restored in answer to 
prayer after medicine had failed. That we ought 
to give more attention to the power of mind over 
matter and to prayer in relation to the sick I am 
fully persuaded in my own mind. Christian Sci- 
ence, then, emphasizes some great truths and 
does some good. Let us be honest and give them 
credit for what good they do. 

Christian Science vs. Science. — But if the fun- 
damental, central and organizing principle of Ed- 
dyism is correct, then the whole thinking world 
is, and has been for these thousands of years, off 
its base. Schools of medicine have missed the 
mark and all our physicians are fools. College 
presidents and professors, high school superin- 
tendents and teachers are full-blooded brothers 
and sisters to the physicians. The Man of Gali- 
lee had not discovered this fact, for one of his 
chosen disciples was "Luke, the beloved physi- 



EDDYISM 57 

cian." Now let us every one think just as clearly 
and profoundly as we are capable of doing. 
What is the central organizing fact of Christian 
Science ? Paul once said : "I think I have the 
mind of Christ." I think I have the mind, the 
thought of Mrs. Eddy, though I may be mistaken. 
It may be an illusion of mortal mind. Mrs. Eddy 
has conceived the idea, or thinks she has, that 
there is one great infinite mind, filling all space ; 
nothing else is, nothing else can be ; that is, noth- 
ing else can have any real existence. How did 
she get hold of that idea if she is not that great 
mind herself ? She says : "God is everything 
and matter has no existence, but is an illusion of 
mortal mind. Sin, sickness and death have no 
existence, but are illusions of mortal mind. All 
evils, such as plagues, tornadoes, cyclones, fires, 
earthquakes and accidents have no existence, but 
are illusions of mortal mind." She defines God 
as "the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all- 
loving, all-wise and eternal principle." She says : 
"The Deity is not a person. The divine principle, 
not person, is the father and mother of mind and 
the universe." She tells us that "God has count- 
less ideas, many sons and daughters, but they 
have all one principle and father." To put her 
thought in other language, the children of God 
are only ideas and the only father they have is a 
principle. Each one of these ideas is of the di- 
vine essence, a part of God, who fills all space, 



58 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

and beside whom nothing else can exist. Now, 
observe the logic of this thing. Mrs. Eddy 
speaks of sickness, sin and death, but says they 
are not of God ; they are illusions of mortal mind. 
But remember she has declared that God is all, 
and beside Him nothing else can exist. Nothing 
can exist outside of God ; sin, sickness, pain, 
death, matter, can not exist inside of God, who is 
infinite mind. Consequently sin, sickness, pain, 
death, matter do not exist in reality; they are 
only illusions of mortal mind. The whole sci- 
ence, so called, is wrapped up in this false, to us 
at least, conception of the allness of God. She 
reasons from false premises and reaches ridicu- 
lous conclusions and then calls this kind of rea- 
soning a science. A brief definition of science is 
this : "Knowledge gained and verified by exact 
observation and correct thinking." Science is a 
knowledge of facts gained through the senses. 
But this she does not accept. She can not, if she 
holds to the central, organizing principle of her 
science. On page 293 of "Science and Health" 
she says : "The five physical senses are the ave- 
nues and instruments of human error." Again 
she says : "Adhesion, cohesion and attraction are 
principles not of matter but of mind. There is no 
physical science ;" no science but the science of 
mind. Everything is mind, everything is God. 
There is, then, no reality in the sciences of our 



EDDYISM 59 

schools that deal with matter, no reality in matter, 
no reality in medicine. 

On page 155 of "Science and Health" she says : 
"When the sick recover by the use of drugs it is 
the law of a general belief culminating in indi- 
vidual faith, which heals ; and according to this 
faith will the effect be. Even when you take 
away the individual confidence in the drug you 
have not yet divorced it from the general faith. 
The chemist, the botanist, the druggist, the doc- 
tor and the nurse equip the medicine with their 
faith, and the beliefs that are in the majority 
rule." Then it logically follows, if the drug de- 
pends upon the general faith of the people for 
whatever effect it may have, if you were to feed 
your children on poison it would nourish them 
and if you gave them milk it would intoxicate 
them, if that were the general belief or thought 
power of the people. You see, she can't get away 
from the idea that God is everything, that noth- 
ing can exist but mind. And when a woman will, 
she will, and when she won't, she won't, and 
there's an end on't. This feature of Christian 
Science is not new. It is pagan in its origin. That 
remarkable little woman of India, Pundita Rama- 
bai, whom some of us have seen and heard, rec- 
ognizes Christian Science as the same philosophy 
which has been taught among her people for four 
thousand years. She says : "It is called the phi- 



bo ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

losophy of nothingness among her people. You 
are to view the whole universe as nothing but 
falsehood. You are to think that it does not ex- 
ist. You do not exist. I do not exist. The birds 
and the beasts do not exist. When you realize 
that you have no personality whatever, then you 
will have attained the highest perfection of what 
is called Yoga, and that gives you liberation from 
your body, and you become like him, without any 
personality." This philosophy of heathen India 
is what Mrs. Eddy is trying to make the people 
of a Christian civilization believe. They say: 
"Science and health, with the key to the Scrip- 
tures, is deep, is profound." It isn't. It is not 
clear, it is unreasonable, unthinkable. That's the 
reason people can not follow her. Her definitions 
need to be defined. Mrs. Eddy reminds me of 
the young man whose lady friend asked him if he 
did not find it difficult sometimes to express his 
thoughts. "Yes," he replied, "and when I have 
expressed them I wonder why I went to all that 
trouble." I honestly believe, my friends, that by 
reason of this theory that matter does not exist in 
reality, that sickness does not exist in reality, 
only in our thinking so, there are hundreds of 
people in their graves to-day who might have 
been living yet had they not been denied proper 
medical attention. Two little children, it is said, 
in our own State of Indiana, playing together, 
found "Rough on Rats." The parents of one 



EDDYISM 61 

were Christian Scientists ; the other's were not. 
In the latter case stomach pump and the doctor 
did the work and that child attended the funeral 
of the other in four days. What else can you call 
that but criminal neglect? Why not be sensible 
about these things and use all the healing reme- 
dies and all the medical skill, as well as thought 
power, for in any case it is divine healing, espe- 
cially if God is everything. 

Absurd Theories. — Christian Scientists do not 
live, can not live, on their theory. It is absurd to 
think that they can. Even Mrs. Eddy does not 
walk through a door. She opens the door. The 
door actually exists and is in her way. She sits 
down on a real chair. She sleeps on a real bed. 
She eats real steak; she does just as the rest of 
us do, and must do so or die, philosophy or no 
philosophy. It is all nonsense to talk about mat- 
ter not being real. Every intelligent person 
knows that matter is just as real as spirit. What 
is reality ? The dictionary says : "That which 
is real ; an actual existence ; that which is not im- 
agination or pretense." Butt your head against 
a stone wall and see if it isn't real. Let a cyclone 
strike you and see if it isn't real. But Mrs. Eddy 
does not accept the definitions of men. God is 
everything. Nothing else can exist. Therefore 
matter is not real. Now if she would talk sense 
like Paul, who said, "The things which are seen 
are temporal," or temporary, and like John, who 



62 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

says, "The world passeth away," then we could 
follow her. But these things that we see, and 
feel, and handle, and eat are real while they last. 
Furthermore, Christian Scientists do not live en- 
tirely on their theory in regard to medical treat- 
ment. One of the most prominent physicians in 
this town has been called again and again to treat 
Christian Scientists, and even science healers. 
This is known to be a fact. We are not blaming 
them for this ; rather we congratulate them. Mrs. 
Eddy says : "Pain has no reality." And yet it is 
known that she went to the dentist and received 
his treatment. Her press agent, in reply to what 
was said about this matter, says : "Surgery, den- 
tistry and other mechanical operations are in- 
dulged in by the adherents of this faith as that 
which is best under existing circumstances." 
Well, I should think so. They do talk and act 
like the rest of us sometimes in spite of their 
theory. 

Eddyism Unhinges All Christendom. — If Mrs. 
Eddy's interpretation of the Bible is correct, then 
all Christendom is unhinged and has been for 
nineteen hundred years. The apostles did not 
know how to explain the Word, nor the early 
Christian fathers. Such men as Luther, and Cal- 
vin, and George Whitfield, and John Wesley, and 
C. H. Spurgeon, and Phillips Brooks, and Beech- 
er, and all the rest, have only been proclaiming 
to the world their ignorance. The world has 



EDDYISM 63 

been left in the dark during all these centuries 
for the advent of Mrs. Eddy. They tell us that 
she is extremely modest. And yet she has the 
nerve to say the key to the Scriptures was given 
to her by divine revelation. We have thought 
the key was given to Peter and the rest of the 
apostles. 

What are some of the things Eddyism takes 
from us ? The personality of God, leaving only 
a principle for God ; "love without a lover, life 
without a living being, truth without conscious- 
ness, a father without a heart of pity." It takes 
away the ordinances of the church, baptism and 
the Lord's supper; says public prayer is out of 
place ; denies the reality of sin and hence renders 
the atonement unnecessary. These things we do 
not hear touched upon at their public lectures. I 
heard the lecture of Judge Ewing, ninety-five per 
cent, of which could be accepted from this plat- 
form. I hoped he would consider some of these 
radical differences. I heard Mr. Norton's lecture 
at the Temple last Sunday afternoon, eighty per 
cent, of which could be heartily indorsed by all 
our Christian churches. He is an eloquent 
speaker, and the address was clear until he got 
onto the definitions of "science and health." 
Then it was vague. In that lecture he said : 
"Christian Science is a plea for the restoration of 
primitive Christianity." And yet in that primi- 
tive or apostolic church we find that they bap- 



64 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

tized their converts, administered the Lord's sup- 
per and met often for public prayer, all of which 
are eliminated from their worship. Let us take a 
few samples of Mrs. Eddy's interpretation of the 
Scriptures. On page 19 of "Science and Health" 
are the words, "Jesus urged the commandment, 
Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' which 
may be rendered, thou shalt have no belief in 
matter." That inspiring text, "Let us lay aside 
every weight and the sin which doth so easily be- 
set us, and let us run with patience the race that 
is set before us," Mrs. Eddy renders after this 
fashion : "Put aside material self and sense, and 
seek the divine principle and science of all heal- 
ing," page 20. Concerning those precious words, 
"Jesus bore our sins in His own body," Mrs. 
Eddy says : "He knew the mortal errors which 
constitute the material body and could destroy 
those errors, but at the time when Jesus felt our 
infirmities He had not conquered all the beliefs of 
the flesh or His sense of material life," page 53. 
That virtually says Jesus had not reached the sub- 
lime height attained by herself. 

Is it not a fearful thing to handle the Word of 
God after this fashion? If it is dangerous for a 
child to handle a razor, then it is dangerous for 
us to fool with the Bible, for it is sharper than 
any two-edged sword. Christian Scientists may 
be sincere. But sincerity never saved anybody 
and never will. A few years ago Engineer 



EDDYISM 65 

Strong, of the Continental Limited train over the 
Wabash Railroad, took his dispatch from the sta- 
tion agent and read it: "Pass at Sand Creek," 
but it was written "Pass at Seneca." He ran his 
engine, supposing he had read aright. The result 
was a crash of two passenger trains at a point 
near Adrian, Mich., and the telegraph wires 
flashed across the country : "Eighty dead and 
one hundred and twenty-five injured." No matter 
how sincere we may be, we had better be careful 
how we handle the Word. 

The Bible vs. Christian Science. — Let us make 
a few contrasts between "Science and Health" 
and the Bible. 

"Science and Health" says : "God never cre- 
ated matter," page 335. The Bible says : "In 
the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth," Genesis 1:1. "Science and Health" says: 
"Man has a sensationless body," page 280. The 
Bible says : "She felt in her body that she was 
healed," Mark 5 '.29. "Science and Health" says : 
"Spirit and matter no more commingle than light 
and darkness. When one appears the other dis- 
appears," page 261. The Bible says: "Your 
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit," I Cor. 
6:19. "Science and Health" says: "He restored 
Lazarus by the understanding that he never 
died," page 75. The Bible says : "Then said 
Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead," John 
11 :i4. "Science and Health" says: "One sacri- 



66 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

fice, however great, is not sufficient to pay the 
debt of sin," page 23. The Bible says : "Now 
once in the end of the world hath He appeared to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself," He- 
brews 12 :26. "Science and Health" says : "Be- 
cause soul is immortal, soul can not sin," page 
468. The Bible says : "The soul that sinneth, it 
shall die," Ezek. 18:4. "Science and Health" 
says : "The theory of three persons in one God, 
that is, a personal trinity, suggests heathen gods 
rather than the ever-present I Am," page 256. 
The Bible says : "Baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit," Matt. 28:19. Mrs. Eddy says: "The 
second appearance of Jesus is unquestionably the 
spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God in 
Christian Science," Autobiography, page 96. 
The Bible says : "This same Jesus which is taken 
up from you into heaven shall so come in like 
manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven," 
Acts 1 :n. 

Are there two Bibles? Is Christ divided? 
Mrs. Eddy, in "No and Yes," page 42, says : "If 
the Bible and my work, 'Science and Health,' 
had their rightful place in schools of learning, 
they would revolutionize the world by advancing 
the kingdom of Christ." There seems to be no 
uncertain sound in this. The Bible is not suffi- 
cient of itself. Whom shall we follow? Mrs. 
Eddy, who soars and soars and soars on her pin- 



EDDYISM 67 

ions until she gets clear out of the realm of mat- 
ter into the spirit world, and then, from her self- 
appointed throne, thinks in the thought of eter- 
nity and speaks in language that mortals can not 
understand, or Christ, who came out of the realm 
of spirit into this world of matter, took to Him- 
self a real body, spoke in language that all can 
understand, recognized the awful reality of sin, 
died a real death on a real cross, rose and ascend- 
ed that He might bring us out of sin, suffering 
and death into that blessed land where sickness 
and sin can not enter ? "Lord, to whom shall we 
go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life." Paul 
says : "For other foundation can no man lay 
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Here is 
a statement on which you may pile the Alps and 
it will not break. So long as a personal God and 
Father hears and answers our prayers, so long as 
He pardons our sins, so long as time shall last — 
yes, and throughout eternity — all that have been, 
are and shall be redeemed, will sing that soul- 
enrapturing song : 

All hail the power of Jesus' name, 

Let angels prostrate fall; 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 

And crown him Lord of all. 



MAMMONISM, 
Or, The Mad Race for Money. 

But they that desire to be rich fall into temptation 
and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, 
such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For 
the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, which 
some reaching after have been led astray from the 
faith, and have pierced themselves through with many 
sorrows. I Tim. 6 19-10, R. V. 

And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends by 
means of the mammon of unrighteousness ; that when it 
shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal taber- 
nacles. Ye can not serve God and mammon. Luke 
16 :g and 13, R. V. 

ONE of the most memorable nights in history 
was the night of the passover. It was the 
dawn of a new era. The exodus from Egypt 
was the birthday of the Hebrew nation. Just 
prior to that event of such far-reaching signifi- 
cance the Jews were commanded to borrow of 
their neighbors, the Egyptians (with no divine 
instructions to return it), "jewels of silver and 
jewels of gold," and they probably never obeyed 
a command of Jehovah with so much alacrity as 
they did that one. They gathered as much of 
the precious metals as they could, and with great 



MAMMONISM 69 

willingness of mind they have been at it ever 
since. But in this regard they are not unlike the 
rest of mankind. The desire for possession is as 
old as the human family. The spirit of covet- 
ousness was born in the Garden of Eden. That 
thing, whatever it was, that God told Adam and 
Eve they must not have was the very thing they 
wanted above everything else. The following 
saying is put down to the credit of Mohammed : 
"If a son of Adam had two rivers of gold he 
would covet the third, and if he had three he 
would covet the fourth." This saying was never 
more true of the sons of Adam than it is to-day. 
An Age of Money and Money-Making. — This 
age is not so much an age of smoking altars, 
priests and kings as it is an age of money and 
money-making. What a strange lot of people we 
are. Some among us are trying to make them- 
selves believe there is no reality in matter, as we 
saw one week ago to-night. Others think that 
matter is the most real thing in the universe, es- 
pecially if it is in the form of money. And they 
seem to think that he is a sharp, shrewd, success- 
ful man who knows how to make piles of money 
and how to keep it. Even those who are trying 
to make themselves believe there is no reality in 
matter, that all material things are only "illusions 
of mortal mind," are quite willing to receive the 
"filthy lucre." They will even perform miracles 
of healing for a money consideration. In fact, 



70 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

there must be a drop in the bucket before their 
method of healing will take effect. The Man of 
Galilee is the only one that I know anything about 
who healed the sick of all manner of diseases 
without money and without price. 

Have you ever stopped to think how many 
things men and women will do in the mad race 
for money? Business men will even change the 
fashion of your coat and the style of your bon- 
net every so often in order to make money. And 
you might as well be out of the world as out of 
style. So they. say. Fashion determines what 
you shall eat and how you shall eat it, whether 
with a knife or a fork. Fashion determines on 
what street you shall live if youexp ect to move in 



the Dest circles of society. Fashion determines 



2; 

the furnishings of your house and how much it 
will take to run you, and, though it requires the 
utmost strain of brain and nerve, we are simple 
enough to conform. One of the most foolish and 
wicked things we American people are doing to- 
day is the attempt to live in five-thousand-dollar 
style on a two-thousand-dollar income. 

Wicked Methods of Money-Getting. — Hence 
the mad race for money ; no matter by what meth- 
ods, it must be obtained. Men and women are 
violating the laws of the land, are dethroning 
honesty, are committing nameless crimes, are 
crucifying virtue and searing conscience with a 
hot iron for the sake of money. The poor are 



MAMMONISM 71 

often oppressed, ignorance is taken advantage of, 
deception is resorted to for the sake of money. 
Banks are blown open, trains are held up, men 
are murdered for the sake of money. Life is 
risked, wars are waged, armies are slaughtered 
for the sake of money. Illegitimate business is 
carried on in the wild scramble for money. Dr. 
Josiah Strong, in his little book entitled "Our 
Country ; Its Possible Future and Present Crisis," 
says : "Mammonism is corrupting popular mor- 
als in many ways. Sunday amusements of every 
kind, horse-racing, beer gardens, steamboat and 
railroad excursions, are all provided because 
there is money in them. Licentious literature 
floods the land, poisoning the minds of the young 
and polluting their lives, because there is money 
in it. Gambling flourishes in spite of the law, 
and actually under its license, because there is 
money in it. And that great abomination of des- 
olation, that triumph of Satan, that more than 
ten Egyptian plagues in one — the liquor traffic — 
grows and thrives at the expense of every human 
interest, because there is money in it. Ever since 
greed of gold sold the Christ and raffled for His 
garments it has crucified every form of virtue be- 
tween thieves. And while mammonism corrupts 
morals it blocks reforms." 

Refinements of Dishonesty. — But Satan does 
not always come in these coarse methods of 
money-making, going about like a roaring lion, 



72 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

seeking whom he may devour. Rather does he 
go about in these days like a stealthy tiger, creep- 
ing with cat-like tread upon his victim, taking 
him unawares. Are not the refined forms of evil 
in the race for money as much to be dreaded in 
our modern society as the coarser methods are? 
In society as it is to-day there are methods by 
means of which one man may get possession of 
another man's property, which is morally as 
wicked as if he had taken it by force. And yet 
these methods are legal. The other day a friend 
of mine, a business man, handed me a copy of the 
Wall Street Journal, in which an incident is re- 
lated which illustrates the point in hand: "Not 
very long ago a capitalist, prominently identified 
with a great industrial company, and a friend of 
his had business in Brooklyn. Having transacted 
their business, they started to walk to the nearest 
elevated railroad station, and on the way they 
passed two factories ; one was dismantled and 
had evidently been idle for a long time. The 
other, about two blocks away, was running and 
bore every evidence of prosperity. The grounds 
surrounding it were neatly kept, the fence had 
been recently painted and was in good order, the 
windows were clean and the wheels running on 
every floor. The two men, struck by its appear- 
ance, stopped to look at it. The capitalist said to 
his friend : 'That is a nice looking place. I won- 
der what that man is manufacturing? Suppose 



MAMMONISM 73 

you and I buy that factory ?' His friend laughed 
at the suggestion and said : Terhaps the owner 
does not want to sell.' The answer was : 'Oh, 
that doesn't matter. If he does not want to sell 
we can buy that factory that we just passed and 
bust him.'" Now, what does that mean? It 
means that business is war, and that by the ob- 
servance of rules of war one man has a perfect 
right to knock another man down if he can. And 
this is being done continually in our modern civ- 
ilization. John Ruskin was right when he said: 
"The first of all English games is money-making. 
That is an all-absorbing game, and we knock 
each other down oftener in playing at that than 
at football or any rougher sport." 

In no nation on the face of the earth is the 
scramble for money more fierce than in this ; no- 
where are men more frequently swept out of the 
way or driven to the wall by their stronger com- 
petitors than in the United States, a nation of 
material prosperity and commercial possibilities 
without a parallel ; a nation wealthier by far than 
any nation on the globe. Why, the people in Eu- 
rope seem to think that money grows on bushes 
in America. Did you see that statement in the 
papers the other day concerning Adelina Patti? 
A three-thousand-dollar audience had assembled 
in New York City, but Patti would not go on the 
stage until she was handed a check for $6,000, 
her American price. But in Europe she sings at 



74 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

$300 a night. Weber and Fields gave the check 
for $6,000, her price in America, and thereby lost 
$3,000. I call that an outrage. Bless her miserly 
soul ! Since that I wouldn't give fifty cents to 
hear her sing all night. But she, like many oth- 
ers, is in the mad race for money, no matter about 
the welfare of others. 

Perils of Wealth. — Now, let us think for a mo- 
ment of the perils of wealth. Paul knew what he 
was talking about when he said : "They that de- 
sire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, 
and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as 
drown men in destruction and perdition. For the 
love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, which 
some reaching after have been led astray from 
the faith, and have pierced themselves through 
with many sorrows." I presume one of the most 
tremendous tests of a man's character is great, 
and especially sudden, wealth. The weakest of 
us can bear the yoke of poverty. But not many 
can stand the test of wealth. It has been fittingly 
said : "For a man to betray his trust for money 
is for him to stand on the same intellectual level 
with a monkey that scalds its throat with boiling 
water because it is thirsty." There seems to be 
something intoxicating about wealth. Especially 
is this true of a poor man, who is held in the safe 
harness of his needs in the days of his poverty, 
but when wealth comes — sometimes a million in 
a day — he goes wild and breaks his harness and 



MAMMONISM 75 

gives himself to all sorts of extravagance and sin- 
ful pleasures. In the October number of Every- 
body's Magazine there is an interesting article by 
Alfred Henry Lewis, in which he says : "There 
is a gentleman whose name is Peacock — Peacock, 
of Pittsburg — Peacock, of twenty millions — Pea- 
cock, of American Steel. Peacock first got his 
bridle off in Los Angeles. That score of millions 
had been his own for several months, but he was 
waiting for this California occasion to thoroughly 
arouse mankind to the fact. He called for a spe- 
cial train, ordered the tracks cleared and switches 
spiked, and then threw himself across the conti- 
nent like a shooting star. He arrowed himself 
through space to mock the speed of planets." 

That man, who was once a traveling salesman, 
is only one of a multitude who have been made 
fools of and finally ruined by wealth. "They that 
desire to be rich fall into many foolish and hurt- 
ful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and 
perdition." We are indebted to the Rev. W. B. 
Riley, of Minneapolis, for calling our attention to 
the following interesting story. He says : "The 
story is told that, when Rome was besieged, the 
daughter of its ruler saw the golden bracelets on 
the left arm of the enemy, and she sent word to 
them that she would betray her city and surren- 
der it if only they would give her these orna- 
ments. The proffer was accepted ; at night the 
city gate opened. As the army passed in she was 



76 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

present to receive the bracelets. Keeping their 
promise, they threw them upon her and followed 
them with their shields, until, under the weight, 
she fell and died." That young woman and her 
fate illustrate the awful fact that thousands 
upon thousands, by the spirit of covetousness, 
pierce themselves with many sorrows and go 
down to destruction and perdition under the 
weight of wealth. "The man who treats his fel- 
low-men as so many clusters to be squeezed into 
his own cup will find, sooner or later, that he has 
burglarized his own soul." The greed of gain is 
like a gun that fires at the muzzle and kicks over 
at the breach. Our Master speaks of "the deceit- 
fulness of riches." Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, of 
Brooklyn, said the other day that he knew of a 
great many people in Greater New York who are 
going to the devil on an income of $50,000 a year. 
I think I know of some in Fort Wayne who are 
going to the devil on an income of one thousand 
dollars a year, and some on a less income than 
that. A man may be under the influence of mam- 
monism, may be a worshiper at the shrine of sil- 
ver and gold with only a dollar in his pocket as 
truly as if he had millions in the bank. The ques- 
tion is, if the X-rays were turned on your heart 
to-night would they reveal a photograph of the 
Christ or a photograph of a silver dollar? It is 
not money, but the love of money, that is a root 
of all kinds of evil. 



MAMMONISM 77 

The Benefits of Wealth. — There are, then, not 
only perils, but great possibilities for good in 
wealth. Money, in and of itself, is a mighty good 
thing. I believe God gives some men ability to 
make money as truly as He gives other men abil- 
ity to preach the Gospel. He will not condemn 
men for making money so long as they make it by 
fair competition and in legitimate ways, but He 
will hold men to strict account for the use they 
make of money. The question for every man to 
settle is this : Is money my god, or am I serving 
God with my money as well as with my life ? Is 
my money managing me, or am I managing my 
money? "Ye can not serve God and Mammon." 
Senator Depew once said in an address : "In this 
age of such large opportunities to do good with 
money it is a disgrace for a man to die worth 
twenty millions." It seems to me that the Sen- 
ator might have taken off nineteen millions more 
and still have been within the bounds of reason. 
For what does any man want with more than a 
million ? I very much fear some men will die dis- 
gracefully and wickedly rich. I wonder what the 
good Lord thinks of that wealthiest man in all the 
world, who gives occasionally a few hundred 
thousands, or a few millions, to benevolent or ed- 
ucational institutions, when he knows that he has 
about ten hundred millions left? Will God judge 
men according to what they give, or according to 
what they have left? 



78 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

But, then, the average Christian is holding on 
to his possessions to such an extent that he is de- 
priving himself of many spiritual blessings. A 
little child, it is said, was one day playing with a 
vase. He put his hand into it and could not get 
it out. The members of the family were talking 
of breaking the vase in order to set the child's 
hand at liberty. Finally the father said : "My 
child, make one more try; open your hand and 
hold your fingers out straight, as you see me do- 
ing, and then pull." To their surprise, the child 
said : "Oh, no, papa ; I couldn't put out my fin- 
gers like that, for if I did I would drop my 
penny." No wonder he could not withdraw his 
hand. He had been holding on to his penny, just 
as Christians to-day are holding on to what ought 
to be given to the cause of Christ. The follow- 
ing epigrams were inscribed on the tombstones 
of two very different men. The one was a mean, 
miserly, close-fisted man, whose wife wanted to 
say something good about him after his death, 
and this was the epigram : "He was not so mean 
a man sometimes as he was at other times." The 
other man was large-hearted and liberal, gave 
much more than a tenth of his income to the Lord 
and was loved by everybody. This was the epi- 
gram inscribed on his tombstone : "What I used 
I had ; what I saved I left behind ; what I gave 
away I took with me." When will men learn 
that character is better than gold, that treasures 



MAMMONISH 79 

in heaven are worth vastly more than treasures 
on earth? 

Just before his death, Horace Greeley ex- 
claimed: "Fame is a vapor, popularity an acci- 
dent, riches take wings, those who cheer to-day 
will curse to-morrow ; only one thing endures — 
character." Not money-making and money- 
hoarding, but the making of character, is the all- 
important thing in this world. 

How to Use Our Wealth. — Our Lord has 
taught us how to use our money. "Make to your- 
selves friends by means of the Mammon of un- 
righteousness, that when it (your money) shall 
fail, those who have been made friends to Christ 
and friends to yourself by means of your money 
in this and in heathen lands, but who have died 
and gone to heaven before you, will be there at 
the gate of heaven to receive you into the eternal 
tabernacles." 

When Mahmoud, the conqueror of India, had 
taken the city of Gujarat, he proceeded, as was 
his custom, to destroy the idols. There was one 
fifteen feet high, which its priests and devotees 
begged him to spare. He was deaf to their en- 
treaties, and, seizing a hammer, he struck it one 
blow, when, to his amazement, from the shattered 
image there rained down at his feet a shower of 
gems, pearls and diamonds — treasure of fabulous 
value, which had been hidden within it. Had he 
spared the idol he would have lost all this wealth. 



80 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

My friends, break the idols of your hearts, 
whatever they may be ; let go your grip on what 
belongs to God; give yourselves to Him for 
cleansing and for service; honor Him with your 
substance and there will rain upon you from the 
throne of grace "the unsearchable riches of 
Christ." 



AGNOSTICISM, 
Or, Doubt as to the Existence of God. 

I found an altar with this inscription, "To the un- 
known God." Acts 17:23. 

If thou knewest. John 4:10. 

If any man will do His will, he shall know of the 
doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of 
myself. John 7:17. 

AGNOSTICISM seems to have originated in 
the mind of Prof. Thomas A. Huxley in 
1869. The circumstances under which he in- 
vented the word agnostic to express his views on 
the subject of religion were rather amusing. He 
says : "When I reached intellectual maturity 
and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, 
a theist or a pantheist, a materialist or an idealist, 
a Christian or a free-thinker, I found that the 
more I learned and reflected the less ready was 
the answer, and at last I came to the conclusion 
that I had neither art nor part with any of these 
denominations except the last. This was my sit- 
uation when I had the good fortune to find a 
place among the members of that remarkable con- 
fraternity of antagonists, long since deceased — 
the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of phil- 



82 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

osophical and theological opinion was represented 
there, and expressed itself with entire openness. 
Most of my colleagues were 'ists' of one sort or 
another, and however friendly they might be, I, 
the man without a rag of a label to cover himself 
with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy 
feelings which must have beset the historical fox, 
when, after leaving the trap in which his tail re- 
mained, he presented himself to his normally 
elongated companions. So I took thought and 
invented what I conceived to be the appropriate 
title of agnostic, and I took the earliest oppor- 
tunity of parading it at our society to show that 
I, too, had a tail like the other foxes. To my 
great satisfaction, the term took, and when the 
Spectator had stood god-father to it, any suspi- 
cion in the minds of respectable people that a 
knowledge of its parentage might have awakened 
was, of course, completely lulled." It was then, 
under circumstances of embarrassment, that Prof. 
Huxley invented the shortest and apparently the 
most humble creed of all the isms under the sun. 
The Meaning of Agnosticism. — The word ag- 
nostic, which Mr. Huxley took from Paul's men- 
tion of the "Altar to the unknown God," means 
unknown and unknowable. The agnostic dis- 
claims any knowledge of God or of the ultimate 
nature of things. He holds that human knowl- 
edge is limited to experience, and that since the 
absolute and unconditioned, if it exists at all, can 



AGNOSTICISM 83 

not fall within the range of human experience, 
we can not assert anything in regard to it. Hence 
we should neither affirm nor deny the existence 
of God. A discrimination should be made be- 
tween atheism and agnosticism. The atheist 
flatly denies the existence of God, while the ag- 
nostic denies the possibility of knowing that there 
is a God. There are perhaps but few out-and-out 
atheists. And yet it is written : "The fool hath 
said in his heart there is no God." Of all the 
fools in the world he is the greatest who, in the 
light of nature and revelation, in the midst of 
altars piled upon altars and grace added to grace, 
says : "There is no God." Can you think of any- 
thing more foolish than to believe that all this 
rare fabric of creation, teeming with life in its va- 
riety of forms, came by chance, when we know 
that all the skill of man can not even create an 
oyster ? Can there be anything more foolish than 
to see the rare effects that we do see and not be- 
lieve that there is an adequate intelligent cause 
back of it all ? The constant rotation of the earth 
round the sun, the planets pursuing in perfect or- 
der their appointed courses, the changes of the 
seasons, winter and spring, summer and fall, an 
excellent system of government, and yet no 
ruler ? A motion without an immovable ; a circle 
without a center ; a time without an eternity ; a 
second without a first; a thing that begins not 
from itself, and not to perceive there is something 



84 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

from which it does begin, which must be without 
beginning. This is atheism. The thing formed 
says nothing formed it; that which is made is, 
and that which made it is not. This is atheism. 
The man who says there is no God sins with a 
very high hand against the light of nature and 
revelation. 

The agnostic, however, does not go quite so far 
as the atheist. His creed can be summed up in 
these words : I don't know ; nobody knows. And 
yet his creed implies a doubt as to the existence 
of God and an arrogant assumption that no one 
can prove His existence. Furthermore, it in- 
volves a refusal of faith until His existence be 
mathematically demonstrated, which would be no 
faith at all. For if God's existence could be ab- 
solutely proved there would be no room for faith. 
The position, therefore, of the agnostic, appar- 
ently humble — a confession of ignorance — is but 
very little better than the position of the atheist. 
He is as a man who stands on a hole in the 
ground. He reminds me of the Kentuckian who, 
during the civil war, was on the side of the Union 
or Confederate army, according to which was 
the nearest. Finally a determined effort was 
made to force him to define his position. A 
neighbor was sent as a committee to tell him that 
all his neighbors wanted to know where he stood. 
He tried to evade the question. But the commit- 
teeman pressed him for a definite answer. He 



AGNOSTICISM 85 

said : "We want to know just what you are down 
deep in your heart." "Well, neighbor," said he, 
"now look here ; if you won't tell I'll tell you. I 
am nothing, just nothing, and but very little of 
that." That is about what agnosticism means. 
It is a religion of know-nothingism. There may 
be a God ; I do not know ; nobody knows. There 
may be a hereafter, or there may not; I do not 
know; nobody knows. But how does he know 
that nobody knows, unless he is himself infinite in 
knowledge ? 

Do you see how the agnostic goes at one bound 
from a confession of ignorance to an assumption 
of universal knowledge? A disciple of this ism 
once said : "An agnostic is one who is not cer- 
tain of anything." Then how is he certain that 
nobody else knows whether there is a God or not ? 
While a student in college I received a rebuke 
which has done me a vast amount of good. One 
day the professor asked me to put on the black- 
board the solution of a difficult problem in ad- 
vanced algebra. I had not yet solved it, and I 
knew none of the boys in the class had solved it, 
though we had worked at it for a week. But to 
the board I went and worked at it nearly another 
hour. Finally I threw down my crayon and said : 
"Professor, it can't be solved. It's a false propo- 
sition." "Tut, tut, tut," said the professor. He 
then took a piece of crayon and in three minutes 
he solved the difficult part of the problem and 



86 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

then said: "Young man, do you see?" "I see," 
said I. He placed his hand on my head and said : 
"Never again say a thing is false because you can 
not see through it. Maybe somebody else can." 

God's Non-Existence More Difficult to Prove 
than His Existence. — Now, suppose we can not 
prove to an absolute certainty God's existence. It 
is a thousand times more difficult to prove that 
He does not exist. One who denies the existence 
of God, or even doubts His existence, is involved 
in inextricable difficulties. He has a thousand 
and one things to account for that he can not sat- 
isfactorily explain if he denies the existence of an 
intelligent Creator. To me at least God's exist- 
ence seems to be a scientific necessity. Creation 
can not be accounted for without Him. If God's 
existence is granted, then creation and the mys- 
teries of life may find solution. Dr. Christlieb, 
an eminent scholar and lecturer at Bonn Univer- 
sity, says : "The denial of the existence of God 
involves a perfectly monstrous hypothesis. Be- 
fore one can say that the world is without a God 
he must first have become thoroughly conversant 
with the whole world. He must have searched 
through the universe of suns and stars, as well as 
the history of all ages ; he must have wandered 
through the whole realm of space and time in or- 
der to be able to assert with truth : 'Nowhere has 
a trace of God been found.' He must be ac- 
quainted with every force in the whole universe ; 



AGNOSTICISM 87 

for should but one escape him, that very one 
might be God. He must be able to count up with 
certainty all the causes of existence, for were 
there one that he did not know, that one might 
be God. He must be in absolute possession of all 
the elements of truth, which form the whole body 
of our knowledge ; for else the one factor which 
he did not possess might be just the very truth 
that there is a God. In short, to be able to affirm 
authoritatively that no God exists a man must be 
omniscient and omnipresent ; that is, he himself 
must be God, and then, after all, there would be 
one." It requires but a moment's reflection to 
convince any intelligent man that it is infinitely 
more difficult for the agnostic to prove the non- 
existence of God than for the Christian to prove 
His existence. The fact is, we can not prove to 
an absolute certainty by any process of human 
reason alone that there is or is not a personal, in- 
telligent, all-wise God. But even if we should 
eliminate Christ and the Bible from the discus- 
sion, the believer in God has decidedly the best of 
the argument. The argument from design in 
creation is everywhere apparent, and from the in- 
tellectual and moral nature of man is almost con- 
clusive evidence as to the existence of God. Does 
not man, in becoming conscious of his own per- 
sonality, become at the same time conscious of 
his state as a conditioned and limited being? 
And is not the acknowledgment that there must 



88 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

be a Being who is absolute and unconditioned a 
necessary corollary? Luthardt has well said: 
"The perception of his own relativity leads man 
to the idea of some higher Being on whom his 
own existence depends, and this Being he can 
conceive only as one that is absolute — above him- 
self and above nature — that is, God." The exist- 
ence of God seems to be an inward necessity of 
thought. The world over, man's heart believes 
in the existence of a God. Hence the denial of 
His existence is an arbitrary act of will. But in 
addition to all that has been said, the believer has 
the direct, positive, conclusive revelations of the 
Bible. The Christian's God is revealed rather 
than discovered. The world by wisdom (that is, 
human wisdom) knew not and knows not God. 
To the wise Athenians Paul said, when he "found 
an altar with this inscription to the unknown 
God, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him 
declare I unto you." And in another connection 
he declares that the knowledge he had of this, to 
the Greeks, unknown God, he had obtained by 
revelation. Agnosticism as well as atheism is 
condemned by science, refuted by reason, rejected 
by revelation, contradicted by experience and dis- 
credited by morality. And yet, while there are 
but few atheists, there are many agnostics, and 
among them a few scholars and profound think- 
ers along other lines than religion. Their opin- 
ions are good on some things, but valueless on 



AGNOSTICISM 89 

theology and the interpretations of the Scrip- 
tures. 

The Secret of Atheism and Agnosticism. — 
What is the secret of unbelief in God, whether 
it manifests itself in atheism or agnosticism? 
Nine times out of ten it is traceaole to ignorance 
of the Scriptures. Sometimes it is due to the 
wickedness of the human heart and rebellion 
against restraints. We must admit, however, 
that there are some honest doubters. The man 
who wrote the biography of Thomas Paine tried 
to excuse his blunders and ridiculous criticisms 
of the Scriptures on the ground that he was with- 
out a Bible and could not procure one at the time 
he wrote "The Age of Reason." Robert Inger- 
soll was not very familiar with the Bible when he 
lectured on the "Mistakes of Moses." He made 
a hundred mistakes to where Moses made one. 
But he was an eloquent man, a captivating speak- 
er, and made money out of his attacks on God 
and His Word. A young man who entered one 
of the colleges in Ohio said to the president : "I 
want it understood at the start that I am an un- 
believer in God." The president said : "Have 
you carefully read the Bible?" "No, sir, I have 
not, because I am an unbeliever." That was 
about as logical as if a young man should say : 
"I am ignorant, therefore I should not be ex- 
pected to go to school." Benjamin Franklin be- 
longed to a literary club whose members were 



90 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

wont to ridicule the Bible. Franklin decided to 
test their knowledge of the Bible. At one of 
their meetings he read the story of Ruth, which 
he had put in manuscript form. They were de- 
lighted with it, and requested that it be printed. 
Franklin then exposed their ignorance by inform- 
ing them that it was already in printed form, and 
if they would read a book called the Bible they 
would find it. There are in the world to-day 
many educated, cultured people who are densely 
ignorant of the Scriptures. Their opinions on re- 
ligion are worthless. Gilbert West and Lord Lit- 
tleton were two of the most pronounced unbe- 
lievers in all London. West said to Littleton one 
day: "Why don't you write a paper against the 
Christian religion and have it published and wipe 
this fanaticism out of existence ?" Littleton said : 
"West, I will write a paper against Christianity 
if you will write one." "All right ; I will do it." 
West was to show the impossibility of the resur- 
rection of Christ. Littleton was to refute the 
conversion of Paul. After carefully investigat- 
ing their respective subjects for several weeks 
they met. Littleton said : "West, what have you 
made out?" "I am a thorough believer in the 
Christian religion as a result of my investiga- 
tion," was the reply. Littleton cheerfully re- 
sponded: "I, too, am convinced that what the 
Bible says is true." And these men both became 
followers of Christ. 



AGNOSTICISM 91 

The Results of Agnosticism. — What does ag- 
nosticism do for humanity? Has it blessed any 
souls ? Has it kindled hope in any human heart ? 
Has it comforted the sorrowing? Has it helped 
to advance civilization? How many colleges has 
it founded? In what ways has it done any good 
whatsoever? The fact is, agnosticism as well as 
atheism leaves one in the dark, without hope and 
without God. Dr. George C. Lorimer has called 
our attention to a curious little book, entitled 
"The Rosicrucians," in which an English peasant 
is represented as making an important discovery. 
The story is related as follows : "As he was com- 
pleting a trench at the close of a long and labori- 
ous day's work his pick suddenly struck some- 
thing hard, which emitted sparks. On examina- 
tion it proved to be an oblong slab of granite, in 
the center of which was inserted an iron ring. 
He removed the stone and found that it covered 
an entrance leading to subterranean chambers. 
He determined to descend the rude and broken 
steps, and attempted to penetrate the darkness. 
Down he clambered until the aperture disap- 
peared and he was surrounded by the blackness 
of darkness. He continued, however, in his peril- 
ous journey, and at the foot of a steeper stair- 
case of stone he saw a steady, though pale, light 
gleaming. This was shining as if from a star or 
coming from the center of the earth. Naturally 
enough, his alarm increased, but resolutely hush- 



92 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

ing the voice of fear, he decided to explore the 
cave, and, if possible, solve the mystery. But as 
he cautiously felt his way he thought he heard 
noises as of horses and wagons over his head, 
which, combined with strange aromas that filled 
the cavern, heightened his bewilderment and ap- 
prehension. Awe-stricken as he was, he followed 
the light, which grew brighter as he advanced, 
and gradually led him to a large square-built 
chamber. Here was a flagged pavement and a 
somewhat lofty roof, in the groins of which was 
a rose, exquisitely carved in dark marble. The 
place was solemn and gloomy, and great was the 
surprise of the peasant to see in the chamber the 
image of a man sitting in a rude chair, intently 
reading a huge book by the flickering radiance of 
an ancient lamp suspended from the ceiling. An 
involuntary cry of astonishment rose to his lips, 
and, though anxious to retreat, he actually took 
a step forward, and as he did so the figure start- 
ed bolt upright, as if amazed at his boldness. Its 
hooded head was reared apparently in angry 
mood, and it moved as though it would address 
the intruder. The peasant, not deterred by 
threatening looks, drew nearer and yet nearer to 
the occupant of the stone-like throne. But as he 
advanced the hooded form thrust out its long 
arm and waved an iron baton forbiddingly, and 
then, as if perceiving that the intruder would pre- 
sumptuously adventure closer, it violently struck 






AGNOSTICISM 93 

the lamp, and, amid crashing, detonating thun- 
ders, out went the light. Enwrapped in darkness, 
the brave peasant tremblingly stood and realized 
that he had reached a boundary beyond which he 
could not go. He found himself in the abyss of 
midnight, reflecting, doubtless, on what had taken 
place, and slowly discovering that the effort to 
transcend the limits of inquiry had only resulted 
in distracting disorder and paralyzing portents." 
In some such fashion not a few of our fellow- 
men, anxious to know the secrets of cause and 
effect, have become bewildered and lost in dark- 
ness and despair. Prof. Tyndall has fittingly 
said : "The mind of man may be compared to a 
musical instrument with a certain range of notes, 
beyond which, in both directions, we have an in- 
finitude of silence." Those who seek to transcend 
the conditions under which knowledge is possi- 
ble are, in Goethe's opinion, "As wise as little 
children, who, when they have looked into a mir- 
ror, turn it around to see what is behind it." Hu- 
man reason can take a man only so far, and if 
reason is his only guide he finds himself ulti- 
mately enwrapped in darkness. 

The Way Out. — But, thanks to a merciful 
Heavenly Father, there is a way out of darkness 
and despair. While Athens was painting and 
carving and making orations, while Rome was 
conquering and building, while Jerusalem was 
garnishing the sepulchres of the prophets and 



94 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

robbing widows' houses, the Man of Galilee down 
there in Palestine was solving the mysteries of 
life and teaching truth destined to revolutionize 
the thought of the world and lead every true in- 
quirer out of darkness into light. To the woman 
at Jacob's well He said: "If thou knewest the 
gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, Give 
me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him, 
and He would have given thee living water." 
And a little later on He said : "If any man will 
do His will he shall know of the doctrine, whether 
it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." 
Rightness of heart, not sharpness of intellect, is 
the condition of spiritual knowledge. Newton 
was living in the atmosphere of science, with the 
faculty of observation in fullest exercise, else he 
would not have seen the apple drop and have dis- 
covered the law of gravitation. An accident, you 
may call it, but it was an accident which could 
have happened only to a Newton. Christ brought 
the light of heaven down to the streets of Caper- 
naum. Those who opened their eyes saw the 
light ; those who believed felt its power ; those 
who followed on saw its glory. Revelation is 
conditioned by faith. "If any man will believe 
he shall know." The agnostic says : "If I could 
know, I would believe." Jesus says : "Believe 
and thou shalt know." The agnostic says : "If 
there is a God, He is unknown and unknowable." 
Jesus says : "I have revealed Him unto you." 



AGNOSTICISM 95 

And in this revelation millions upon millions have 
found light for darkness, comfort for sorrow, 
strength for weakness, hope for despair. No 
honest doubter needs to be long in the dark. This 
very night, my friend, you may know in your 
heart that there is a God and pardon for sin, if 
you will bow your head as well as your heart be- 
fore Calvary. An honest doubter once prayed: 
"O God, if there is a God, reveal Thyself to me." 
The revelation came and he was a saved and 
happy man. Agnosticism is the gospel of de- 
spair. Christianity is the gospel of hope. Ag- 
nosticism points to death as the end. Christian- 
ity points to the palace of the King. The grave 
is not the terminus, but the tunnel, not the way 
down, but the way up, out of the night into the 
light, from clouds to crowns. 



MATERIALISM, 
Or, The Great Delusion. 

If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die. I Cor. 15 :22. 

He endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Heb. 

II \2J. 

THE two great antagonistic conceptions of life 
are couched in these texts; the material in 
the one, the spiritual in the other. In his pro- 
found discussion of the doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion, the Apostle Paul says, in substance : If the 
Gospel I have been preaching — which by revela- 
tion I received — is not true, if there is no reality 
in the religion of Christ, if the dead are not 
raised, then let us adopt the epicurean or materi- 
alistic theory of life, "let us eat and drink, for to- 
morrow we die." It is a quotation from the Epi- 
curean manual or creed. 

Materialism as a Philosophy Is No Better than 
Atheism. — Materialism, as a formulated system 
of philosophy, having its origin in the school of 
Epicurus, is very closely connected with atheism. 
In fact, materialism plays into the hand of athe- 
ism, and atheism flatly denies the existence of 
God, and consequently is driven to the conclusion 



MATERIALISM 97 

that matter is eternal, while materialism merges 
God into matter and maintains that there is no 
such thing as a separate spiritual substance. In 
short, materialism is the deification of matter. 
Dr. Christlieb has properly said: "Every false 
belief and every act of unbelief involves a dispo- 
sition to sensualism and materialism. Every 
apostasy from the living God, who is a spirit, 
necessitates a tendency in the opposite direction 
to the deification of matter, though it may not al- 
ways go so far." Materialism in its extreme 
views does away with God and the immortality 
of the soul. While Christian Science claims there 
is no reality but spirit, materialism claims there 
is no reality but matter. It is "the philosophy of 
dirt/' clasping hands with the philosophy of ani- 
mal life. Here are some of its teachings : "Man 
is the sum of his parents and his nurse, of time 
and place, of wind and weather, of sound and 
light, of food and clothing ;• his will is the neces- 
sary consequence of all these causes, governed by 
the laws of nature, just as the planet in its orbit 
and the vegetable in its soil. Thought consists 
in the motion of matter ; it is the translocation 
of the cerebral substance; without phosphorus 
there can be no thought, and consciousness itself 
is nothing but an attribute of matter." As one 
has expressed it : "Man is nothing more than a 
Mosaic figure made up of different atoms and 
mechanically combined in an elaborate shape." 



98 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

This ism claims that "Sin lies in the unnatural, 
and not in the will to do evil. Wickedness in in- 
dividuals is a natural phenomenon. The organ- 
ism can not govern itself; it is governed by the 
law of its material combination. Free will does 
not exist. Hence there is no responsibility and 
no right to punish. Everything takes place un- 
der an iron necessity." Lucretius, one of the 
most celebrated disciples of Epicurus, says : 
"Nature is spontaneous. It does everything of 
itself, without the meddling of the gods. Man 
is earth-begotten, earth-bound and earth-des- 
tined." It is hardly necessary, in the presence of 
an intelligent audience like this, to spend much 
time in refuting such claims as have been cited, 
nor is it the purpose of this discourse to do so. 
Suffice it to say that the philosophy of the materi- 
alist is refuted not only by revelation, but by sci- 
ence. The leading scientists in the land believe 
in God, in the spiritual as distinct from material, 
and in the immortality of the soul. 

The Testimony of Great Men. — Oersted says : 
"The conception of the universe is incomplete if 
not comprehended as the constant and continu- 
ous work of the eternally creating spirit." Del- 
sarte says : "All things visible are the expres- 
sion of an interior spiritual essence." Faraday 
speaks of the original atom as "A point of force." 
Morell says : "Matter, after all, may be reduced 
to force, and force to spirit as its source and 



MATERIALISM 99 

spring." Joseph Cook says : "As science pro- 
gresses it draws nearer in all its forms to the 
proof of the spiritual origin of force." Prof. C. 
A. Young, the astronomer, when asked to state 
his opinion regarding the forces which move and 
control the planets, made this reply : "By the 
exercise of my will I lift my arm and move my 
body. I think that it is in some similar way, by 
the exercise of God's will, that the heavenly 
bodies are moved and controlled." Herschel said : 
"It is but reasonable to regard the force of grav- 
itation as the direct result of a consciousness or 
a will existing somewhere." The authors of 
"The Unseen Universe" have proved by a line of 
argument which has never been controverted, 
and probably never will be, that "the visible uni- 
verse is developed from the invisible." Similar 
quotations might be made from such men as 
President Hitchcock, Prof. Silliman, and Agas- 
siz, Dana and Dawson, and many others. The 
fact is, the best thought of the world is on the 
side of God and the Christian religion. 

We Are All Too Materialistic. — But passing 
from the philosophical side of the question, let us 
devote our special attention to the consideration 
of the only too evident fact that we are all too 
materialistic. Whatever our real belief may be 
as to the origin of matter, whether we write, 
"Mindless over the dateless procession of things," 
or believe in the existence of a personal, intelli- 

LofC. 



ioo ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

gent, all-wise and all-powerful God back of all 
and over all, the mass of humanity is living as if 
there were no God. Many believers in, and even 
professed followers of Christ are not practicing 
what they believe and profess. Men are devoting 
their energies to the material and the tangible. 
They seem to believe only in what they can see 
and touch. They act as if the wisdom of man 
was to know the material, as if his mission were 
to work only on the material. Mrs. Browning 
has given us these lines : 

For everywhere 
We're too materialistic — eating clay, 
(Like men of the West), instead of Adam's corn 
And Noah's wine; clay by handfuls, clay by lumps, 
Until we're filled up to the throat with clay, 
And grow the grimy color of the ground 
On which we are feeding. Aye, materialist 
The age's name is. God himself with some 
Is apprehended as the bare result 
Of what His hand has materially formed. 

That our times are intensely materialistic no 
one can doubt. We are probing the very heart 
of the universe and bringing its hidden mysteries 
into light. Natural forces are yielding to the 
questioning spirit of this age as to no other. Men 
are actually intoxicated with the material tri- 
umphs of our times. We are subduing forces 
that have never been subdued and accomplishing 
the seemingly impossible. We are moving with 



MATERIALISM 101 

tremendous speed. If our grandfathers could 
get out of their graves to-day they would hardly 
know where they were at. Take Methuselah, for 
instance. He was born entirely too soon to see 
anything or know anything. Although he lived 
969 years, almost a millennium, he didn't see any- 
thing, didn't know anything, didn't go anywhere. 
He never saw a book, never read a newspaper, 
never wrote a letter, never got one. He never 
saw a steam engine, never witnessed a political 
jollification, never enjoyed the advantages of a 
city or town council. Never rode a bicycle, never 
tried to. Think of living on this earth nearly a 
thousand years and yet missing the opportunity 
of life. A man can live longer, see more and go 
farther in ten years to-day than Methuselah did 
in his long life. And why ? Because of the mar- 
velous material triumphs of mankind. Now, 
along with these triumphs has come a new ambi- 
tion and aim in life. Instead of seeking primarily 
the culture of the soul, we are concerned with 
the conquest of nature. Everywhere we are dig- 
ging, and delving, and mining, and projecting 
railroads, and compassing land and sea, and mak- 
ing everything tributary to man's temporal grat- 
ification and comfort. While we all, of course, 
rejoice in these material triumphs and comforts, 
is it not possible that we are blinding ourselves to 
the reality of other and more important things? 
Dr. Daniel Gregory, editor of the Homiletic Re- 



102 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

view, says : "The intense materialism of the 
times is not only making logical wreck of the 
world's thinking, but is making wreck of the 
highest feelings, and grandest motives, and sub- 
limest possibilities to which Christianity would 
exalt humanity. The present, the fleeting, the 
tangible occupy the thought of man." 

The Gospel of the Flesh the Great Delusion. — 
Perhaps the greatest of all modern delusions is 
this gospel of the flesh. The leading feature in 
the catechism of practical materialism is this: 
"What is the chief end of man?" The answer: 
"To have a good time and come out number one." 
Animal enjoyment is the great end of existence. 
Many there are "whose god is their belly," who 
say, "Let us eat and drink,- for to-morrow we 
die." Let us make the world cheerful and bright 
with material things. Plant flowers where there 
are none. Have a good time while you can, for 
there is no more beyond. This delusion of earth- 
centered pursuits is so complete with some that 
they have come to consider the natural man as 
real and substantial, while the spiritual man is 
not only unsubstantial, but unreal. Mr. Theo- 
dore F. Seward, in his book entitled "The School 
of Life," says : "An insane person puts a few 
feathers in his hair and thinks he wears a crown. 
He hoards a handful of pebbles in a corner and 
is rich with uncounted gold. Truly he would be 
right if all men agreed with him. If all were un- 



MATERIALISM 103 

der the same delusion the world would be full of 
crowns and gold. Many there are who go 
through the world treating pebbles as gold and 
gold as pebbles. They are bartering eternal joys 
for a little seeming good in the few days of this 
feverish existence." If it is true that man has 
only an animal nature, if he is not a child of God 
and an heir of immortality, if he is organized 
merely for the full enjoyment of his present life, 
then all that we have stupidly considered to be 
virtue is only a sin against his destiny. If the 
visible and material constitute the only reality, 
then we may well busy ourselves scraping the 
earth with our muck rakes and never look up- 
ward, like the boy who found a coin one day on 
the dusty road, and ever afterward, as he walked, 
he kept his eyes on the earth looking for coin. In 
the olden time, it is said, a cavalry company go- 
ing to battle passed through a dark and cavern- 
ous path. Something rattled beneath the horses' 
hoofs and a sepulchral voice was heard to say : 
"He who gathers will be sorry, and he who gath- 
ers not will be more sorry still." One of the men 
leaped from his horse in the dark and gathered 
up a handful of pebbles, as he supposed, but on 
emerging into the light of day he found that his 
palm was full of beautiful and precious gems. 
Friends, it will be so with us. We shall find, 
when the light of the eternal morning breaks 
upon us, those of us who are serving and gather- 



104 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

ing with Christ will be sorry one day that we did 
not serve better and gather more, and those of us 
who gather only for this life will be more sorry 
still. Is there no life beyond ? Is there no reality 
in the invisible ? "What do you believe ?" a cele- 
brated author makes one of his heroes inquire. 
The reply was : "I believe in that," stamping his 
foot on the solid earth. It is a sorry world if a 
man can believe only in that which is beneath 
him, only in the tangible and visible. 

The Invisible Exercises Imperial Dominion 
Over Us. — The fact is, the invisible exercises im- 
perial dominion over us. The mightiest forces in 
the universe are the invisible. There is a power 
by means of which we are enabled to live, and do 
live, with the absent, the distant, the dead, and 
even the unknown. A young man comes to the 
city, and, week after week, month after month, 
resists the powerful temptations to go wrong. 
His feet refuse to cross the threshold of saloon or 
den of vice. What is it that holds him in the 
right way? There is an invisible past, a godly 
home with its altar of prayer, a father's parting 
blessing, or it may be a mother's dying counsel. 
He endures because he sees the invisible — not 
only these invisible dear ones, and feels these in- 
visible forces — but because, like Moses, he sees 
the invisible God. Light, which makes all things 
clear, is to us invisible. We can not see the at- 
mosphere, but we can see objects through it, and 



MATERIALISM 105 

in the atmosphere we live. We are surrounded 
by it, saturated with it, wrapped up in it. The 
bird might say to his mate : "Where is the air ?" 
The fish might ask in the lake : "Where is the 
water?" Man may say: "Where is God? I 
do not see Him, I can not touch Him, I can not 
feel Him with my fingers. Where is He ?" And 
yet it is in Him that we live and move and have 
our being. His truth, holiness, goodness, love 
and mercy have neither material form nor visible 
color. But they are all about us and are as real 
as life itself. Paul says : "Now unto the King 
eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, 
be honor and glory forever and ever." The in- 
visible can be seen only through the invisible, the 
eternal only through that in us, which is itself im- 
mortal. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God." The pure heart is the organ 
through which the invisible One may be seen. 
We are informed "that Dannecker, the German 
sculptor, who died a generation ago, left statues 
of Ariadne and Sappho and a colossal figure of 
Christ. His early fame he won for works con- 
nected with Greek and Roman mythology. 
When he had labored two years upon the statue 
of Christ, the marble was apparently finished. He 
called a little girl into his studio, and, pointing 
to the form of the Christ, he asked : 'Who is 
that?' 'A great man,' was the child's reply. 
'Only a great man?' said the sculptor to himself. 



106 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

For a time he was hopeless. He felt that he had 
failed. But finally taking courage, he began 
again to chisel the marble, and for six years he 
cut and carved. Again he called in a little girl 
and put her before the finished piece. 'Who is 
that ?' he said. The immediate reply was : 'Suf- 
fer little children to come unto me.' It was the 
firm belief of the artist that, for this special task, 
God had given him a special vision of the Christ. 
After this he attracted the attention of Napoleon. 
'Come to Paris,' said the Frenchman; 'make me 
a statue of Venus.' Dannecker's reply was this : 
'A man who has seen Christ would commit sacri- 
lege if he should employ his art in the carving of 
a pagan goddess. My art is henceforth conse- 
crated.' " 

The man who gets a clear vision of the invis- 
ible God, who feels the touch of the Holy Spirit, 
gains a wider prospect, breathes a more bracing 
atmosphere and lives a purer, nobler life. When 
the thinking, acting, aspiring man can rise above 
the material and light his candle at the altar of 
the covenant of the invisible Father, when he can 
see Him by faith on His throne and by his side, 
when he takes his daily observations from the 
light that falls upon his path, then grandeur in- 
vests his life, royalty impels and crowns his ac- 
tions, sublimity inspires his thought, and, other 
things being equal, he successfully scales the 



MATERIALISM 107 

heights of intellectual and moral greatness. With 
good reason did William Faber say : 

Thrice blest is he to whom is given 
The instinct that can tell 
That God is on the field, 
When most invisible. 



SOCIALISTIC SECULARISM, 

Or, The Order of Christ's Kingdom Reversed. 

But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His right- 
eousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. 
Matthew 6 '.33. 

SOCIALISM is a subject that should be con- 
sidered with candor and care. It should not 
be discussed in a loose, indiscriminate manner, 
as it sometimes is. 

Not All Socialists Are Violent Men. — Social- 
ism is an attractive word. It has appealed to and 
attracted not only discontented, envious and law- 
less men, but noble-minded, philanthropic, self- 
sacrificing men as well. That there are Chris- 
tians among Socialists there can be no doubt. 
Under proper limitations socialism is a New Tes- 
tament conception, pleading for a more orderly 
and harmonious arrangement of the social rela- 
tions of mankind. The spirit of the Gospel is 
that the strong should help the weak; that the 
rich should minister to the worthy poor, not, 
however, by compulsion. It is written : "Bear 
ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of 
Christ." If the New Testament principles were 
only supreme in the affairs of the world, the so- 



SOCIALISTIC SECULARISM 109 

cial condition of humanity would be greatly im- 
proved. The result would be less of separateness 
and more of unity, less of injustice and more of 
justice, less of competition and more of co-opera- 
tion. Christ gave His life for men, and He 
teaches us that we should lay down our lives for 
our brethren. 

In the early days of Christianity, the Chris- 
tians in Jerusalem had all things common. But 
that community of goods was the result of vol- 
untary action on the part of the disciples. The 
government did not compel them to bring their 
possessions and put them into the common fund ; 
nor w T ere they required to do so by the new re- 
ligion. It was purely a free-will act and it was 
of short duration, probably because it was found 
to be impractical. 

Josephus, in writing of the peculiarities of the 
Essenes, says : "Nor is there to be found any 
one among them w T ho hath more than another ; 
for it is a law among them that those who come 
to them must let what they have be common to 
the whole order, insomuch that among them all 
there is no appearance of poverty or excess of 
riches, but every one's possessions are intermin- 
gled with every other's possessions, and so there 
is, as it were, one patrimony among all the breth- 
ren." 

An attempt was made in England in 1850 to 
establish what might be called Christian social- 



no ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

ism. The movement met with a measure of suc- 
cess, under the leadership of such men as Charles 
Kingsley, Frederick D. Maurice, Thomas Hughes 
and others. These men maintained that Chris- 
tianity should be directly applied to the ordinary 
pursuits of life, and that consequently the present 
system of competition should give place to co- 
operative associations, both as to products and 
distribution, where all might work together as 
brothers. They did not claim, however, that a 
change in the outward circumstances in the labor- 
er's life, such as is aimed at in most socialistic 
schemes, would settle the labor question, but that 
there must be an inner change brought about by 
education and elevation of character, especially 
through Christianity, in order to right the 
wrongs of society. Furthermore, they contended 
that the aid of the state should not be invoked 
further than to remove all hostile legislation. 

A movement similar to this appeared somewhat 
earlier in France. In the United States the doc- 
trine of Christian socialism has been frequently 
taught. A little community having all things in 
common was formed some years ago at Zoar, 
Ohio, a few miles out from Canton. But I un- 
derstand it has recently culminated in failure, 
following the fate of all such sporadic attempts. 
Many other Socialists there are who, though not 
Christians, are nevertheless not desperate men, 
but rather faddists, who think they have a rem- 



SOCIALISTIC SECULARISM in 

edy for all the ills of society and a method by 
which the millennium might soon come. Were 
we not limited by time and space, it would be in- 
teresting to trace the history of socialism from all 
its attempts and experiments, more or less crude, 
down to the elaborate systems as they are known 
at the present time. But this would defeat the 
purpose of this discourse. 

Socialism Different from Anarchism. — Some 
there are who seem to think that socialism, as an 
organized system, is identical with anarchism. 
But not so. They are at variance with each 
other. Anarchists are Socialists of the most rad- 
ical and violent character, but Socialists are not 
necessarily Anarchists, though some of them may 
be anarchistic in their tendencies. 

In the Encyclopedia of Social Reforms we 
learn that "Up to and after the organization of 
the International, socialism had been identified 
with communism, and, indeed, with any form of 
effort after or theory of a general co-operative 
civilization. But soon after the organization of 
the International, two distinct parties were devel- 
oped within it. One party, led by Bakounin, 
sought a communism to be established on the 
ruins of existing institutions ; the other, led by 
Marx, sought a communism to be established 
through the evolution of existing institutions. It 
is to this view that modern socialism has come. 
The two parties came to a clash in the congress 



ii2 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

of the International at The Hague, in 1872. In 
that congress the Marxist party won, and since 
then the Socialists and the Anarchist Commun- 
ists, as the other party soon learned to call its 
faith, have never come together. The party led 
by Bakounin rejected The Hague congress and 
established a new International, which they 
claimed to be the real one, and by their intensity 
and violence for a while carried the majority of 
continental workmen with them, but the futility 
of their anarchistic methods gradually led the 
overwhelming majority of the workers for com- 
munism in all countries to declare for the So- 
cialists." 

I have quoted at length from this authority be- 
cause of its reliability and because of the impor- 
tance of the point in hand. Socialism, in its mod- 
ern form, as well as anarchism, nihilism, com- 
munism, and other isms, is the product of the old 
country. These isms were born in an age of ma- 
terialism and atheism and under conditions fa- 
vorable to their growth. As one has said : "The 
despotism of the few and the wretchedness of the 
many have produced European socialism." These 
isms have found their way to America. Because 
of the liberty of our government and because of 
the great material prosperity of all classes in the 
United States, it is questionable as to whether 
there are many Americans who are violent So- 
cialists, much less Anarchists. These disturbing 



SOCIALISTIC SECULARISM 113 

elements have for the most part come from across 
the water. 

There are two great socialistic parties in the 
United States, known as the "Socialistic Labor 
Party" and "The International Workingmen's 
Association." Of these two societies Dr. Josiah 
Strong says : "The one is the thin, the other the 
thick end of the socialistic wedge. Both seek to 
overthrow existing social and economical institu- 
tions ; both propose a co-operative form of pro- 
duction and exchange as a substitute for the ex- 
isting capitalistic and competitive system; both 
expect a great and bloody revolution, but they 
differ widely as to policy and extreme doctrines. 
The platform of the Socialistic Labor party con- 
tains much that is reasonable and is well calcu- 
lated to disciple American workmen. It does not, 
as a party, attack the family or religion, and is 
opposed to anarchy. The International Work- 
ingmen's Association, which is much the larger 
party, is extreme and violent. The ideals of the 
Internationals are : common property, socialistic 
production and distribution, the grossest materi- 
alism, free love in all social arrangements, perfect 
individualism, or, in other words, anarchy." 

Let us, then, keep these distinctions in mind, 
limiting ourselves to the one party to-night, and 
leaving the other to be considered one week from 
to-night, under the title, "Anarchism, or, Rebel- 
lion Against Authority." Another distinction 



ii4 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

that ought to be made is that union organizations 
of labor are not socialistic. In fact, the Socialists 
have no use for the unionists. What, then, is 
modern socialism, pure and simple? 

Definitions of Socialism. — The Century Dic- 
tionary says : "Socialism is any theory or sys- 
tem of social organization which would abolish 
entirely or in part the individual effort and com- 
petition on which modern society rests, and sub- 
stitute for it co-operative action ; would introduce 
a more perfect and equal distribution of the prod- 
ucts of labor, and would make land and capital, as 
the instrument and means of production, the 
joint possession of the members of the com- 
munity." John Stuart Mill says : "What is 
characteristic of socialism is the joint ownership 
by all the members of the community of the in- 
struments and means of production, which carries 
with it the consequence that the division of all 
the produce among the body of owners must be 
a public act, performed according to the rules laid 
down by the community." Prof. Richard T. Ely, 
on socialism and social reform, says : "The re- 
sults of the analysis of socialism may be brought 
together in a definition which would read some- 
what as follows : Socialism is that contemplated 
system of industrial society which proposes the 
abolition of private property in the great material 
instruments of production and the substitution 
therefor of collective property, and advocates the 



SOCIALISTIC SECULARISM 115 

collective management of production, together 
with the distribution of social income by society 
and private property in the larger proportion of 
this social income." Gen. Francis A. Walker 
says : "That which characterizes the proper So- 
cialist is a distrust or dislike of competition as an 
agency for distributing the products of industry, 
or a distrust or dislike of the organization of in- 
dustrial society into producing classes ; a distrust, 
a dislike so deep as to induce the purpose to break 
down what is termed the capitalistic system by 
giving to the state the initiative in production, 
wholly or generally, and the sole or chief control 
of all industrial enterprise." These definitions 
by eminent men who have made a study of the 
subject are sufficient to give us a clear concep- 
tion of the real contentions of the Socialists. 

Socialism Impracticable and Unjust. — The in- 
troduction of such . a system as is advocated by 
the Socialist would, in my judgment, culminate 
in absolute failure. Energy would be paralyzed 
and progress arrested. There would be no en- 
couragement, no mighty inducements to excep- 
tional endeavor. Great enterprises would be al- 
most impossible and stupidity would be at a pre- 
mium. Government under such a system would 
become more corrupt than any we have ever 
known. Guizot says that the "prime element in 
modern European civilization is the energy of in- 
dividual life, the force of personal existence." 



n6 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

Whatever good might result, equality would cer- 
tainly not be one of the results. Equality could 
not maintain for one week. Twice such a scheme 
was tried during the Roman republic — namely, 
under Sylla and the second triumvirate, and in 
both instances it brought "dismay and distress" 
to the people and failed at every point. Not only 
would such a scheme fail in this land of enter- 
prise and of large opportunities, but it would be 
manifestly unjust. It would pull down those 
who are industrious and enterprising in order to 
lift up those who are idle and shiftless. Elliott, a 
rhymer, has written these lines concerning the 
communist, which fit the Socialist quite as well: 

What is a communist? One who hath yearnings 

For equal division of unequal earnings; 

Idler or bungler, he's one who is willing 

To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling. 

Then Elliott tells us how he thinks such a man 
would pray : 

Lord, send us weeks of Sundays, 
A saint's day every day ; 
Shirts gratis, ditto breeches, 
Less work and double pay. 

While this would not be true of all Socialists, 
one can well conceive how multitudes of people 
would conduct themselves in harmony with the 
above sentiment if they knew they could draw 
out of the common fund, and that the state was 



SOCIALISTIC SECULARISM 117 

responsible for their support and protection. 
Wendell Philips is represented as having said 
that "the minority under existing arrangements 
has to think and work for the majority, and this 
majority very likely would increase indefinitely 
were it accepted as a fundamental principle that 
it could transfer the responsibility for its welfare 
to the government. A premium this, offered to 
improvidence and shiftlessness. What a delight- 
ful paradise society would become for lazzaroni 
and gaberlunzie men and for the whole tattered 
fraternity of idlers and beggars who believe that 
the world owes them a living." Some socialistic 
leaders are under the delusion that our industrial 
system is on the eve of a great and perhaps 
bloody revolution, but such a radical change as 
they suggest is not likely soon to take place in 
this great Republic. There are, of course, under 
the present system, unjust inequalities and need- 
less oppression and distress. But the Socialists 
are "eminently unfit" to better the condition of 
society, and especially by the methods which they 
propose. 

Socialism Aims at Goods Rather than Good- 
ness. — The greatest mistake that socialism makes 
is that it "aims at goods rather than goodness." 
It is intensely secular. It undertakes to measure 
human welfare simply by utilitarian rules. It 
seeks to promote human welfare by material 
means. It gives exclusive attention to this pres- 



n8 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

ent life and relegates all considerations pertain- 
ing to a future life to a secondary place. It ig- 
nores religious duties and instruction. Many of 
the socialistic leaders have lost faith in God and 
in the immortality of the soul ; have become envi- 
ous of those who are more prosperous than them- 
selves ; have given up all hope of help from a di- 
vine source, and consequently have taken the 
matter in their own hands to right the wrongs of 
society. That the moral atmosphere of the world 
to-day is hazy with socialistic secularism the 
thoughtful student will not deny. And this so- 
cialistic secularism reverses the order of Christ's 
kingdom. It makes the first principles secondary 
and secondary principles first. It aims to save 
society without saving the individual first. Mr. 
Walter Walsh wrote a very able article some 
years ago in the Contemporary Review, in which 
he says : "To-day it is the sociological question 
that engages the deepest attention and attracts 
the fondest hopes, and it is from this the new 
secularism springs. Man is not all brain, and 
the bald rationalism of the hall of science fails 
before the positive demands of modern humani- 
tarianism. The age is impatient of mere nega- 
tions. It has discovered that man has a back and 
a belly as well as a brain, and the question how 
to clothe the one and fill the other has eclipsed 
public interest in Cain's wife and the mistakes of 
Moses. Every appeal of historic Christianity is 



SOCIALISTIC SECULARISM 119 

reversed by the new socialistic secularism. It 
speaks not about sin, but about sociology ; not of 
penitence, but of reform ; of economics, but not of 
faith ; it aspires to satisfy the body rather than 
the soul ; aims at goods rather than goodness, 
and denounces ill conditions rather than vicious 
inclinations. Its devil is not evil personified, but 
an economic specter called capitalism ; and the 
devil's wife is not sin, as Milton thought, but 
competition. No reversal could be more com- 
plete. The pendulum has swung the other way 
with a vengeance." Socialistic secularism, in 
short, seems to say : "Man is not essentially bad ; 
he is the victim of environment. Give him plenty 
to eat and drink and he will be all right." But 
it is not in the nature of such things to correct the 
wrongs of society and satisfy the want of the hu- 
man heart. 

Christ the Laboring Man's Friend. — The Man 
of Galilee taught the way to a worthy and con- 
tented life when He said : "But seek ye first the 
kingdom of God and His righteousness and all 
these things shall be added unto you." Christ is 
the laboring man's best friend. He was Himself 
not only a laboring man, but a poor man. Pov- 
erty was His portion from the cradle to the cross. 
He earned His bread in the sweat of His brow. 
Those hands that touched the bier that the dead 
might awake to life to comfort a sorrowing 
widow's heart; those hands that were placed on 



120 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

the sick that they might be restored to health ; 
those hands that held little children in His arms 
while heaven's blessing was invoked upon them 
were the same hands that handled the chisel, the 
plane and the saw. Yes, that One by whom the 
heavens and the earth were created and by whom 
they consist ; that One who is unlimited in power, 
who holds the destiny of nations and men in His 
hands, worked at the carpenter's trade. Most 
closely and sympathetically did He connect Him- 
self with toiling humanity. With what force, 
then, should His words come to us all, for we are 
all laborers, whether with hands or brain ? Hav- 
ing tasted the experience of poverty and toil, and 
knowing what is best for us, He says : "Seek 
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness 
and all these things shall be added unto you." 
That is, all things needful to the physical man. 
When one gets the spiritual conception of life, his 
physical necessities are reduced to a minimum. 
A hog, you know, never knows when it has 
enough. But a sheep can live on a very little. 
We are His sheep, if we hear His voice and fol- 
low Him. Let us not reverse the order of His 
kingdom. If we would help to remove the 
wrongs of society, if we would help to solve the 
industrial problems of life and bring on the mil- 
lennium, if we would hasten the day when all 
homes shall be happy and all hearts contented, 
then let us follow the instruction of the greatest 



SOCIALISTIC SECULARISM 121 

social reformer the world has ever known. God's 
kingdom must first come into the individual heart 
before it can come to the regeneration of society. 



ANARCHISM, 
Or, Rebellion Against Law. 

Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers; 
for there is no power but of God; and the powers that 
be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth 
the power withstandeth the ordinance of God; and they 
that withstand shall receive to themselves judgment. 
For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the 
evil. Romans 13:1-3, R. V. 

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the 
Lord's sake ; whether it be to the king, as supreme, or 
unto governors, as unto them that are sent by Him for 
the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of 
them that do well. 1 Peter 2:13-14. 

ANARCHY means without a ruler, absence of 
government; a state of society in which 
there is no law, no supreme authority, no govern- 
ment of man by man ; a state of society where in- 
dividuals may do as they please with impunity; 
in other words, absolute individual liberty. The 
chief corner-stone of anarchistic doctrine of 
whatever form is this : "Individuals, and indi- 
viduals only, have rights." An Anarchist is one 
who is in favor of abolishing or overthrowing, by 
one method or another, all the constituted forms 
of society and government. He is one who would 



ANARCHISM 123 

break down all institutions of law and order, all 
property rights, without introducing any other 
system to take the place of the ones destroyed, 
leaving nothing but social and political confusion. 

Two Schools of Anarchists. — There are, how- 
ever, two schools of Anarchists, different in char- 
acteristics and methods. They are both revolu- 
tionary and opposed to government. But the one 
is comparatively mild, while the other is ex- 
tremely violent. "The one starts from the indi- 
vidual and advocates a revolution through ideas ; 
the other starts from the community and advo- 
cates a revolution through force." Those who do 
not believe in resorting to violent methods for 
the accomplishment of their ends are generally 
known as individualist, or philosophical Anarch- 
ists, whose motto is : "Liberty not the daughter, 
but the mother, of order." Those who seek to 
overthrow governments by force are known as 
Anarchist-communists. The assassins, the bomb- 
throwers and dynamiters, both of Europe and 
America, belong to this latter class. The An- 
archist-communists are most numerous in Eu- 
rope, while the individualist, or philosophical 
Anarchists are most numerous in America. 

The Fathers of Anarchism. — A Frenchman by 
the name of Pierre Joseph Proudhon, whose father 
worked in a brewery, was the most pronounced 
leader of the first of the above mentioned schools 
of anarchism. This deluded leader of a forlorn 



i2 4 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

hope was born in 1809, and died (not lamented 
by all who knew him) in 1865. After a severe 
struggle with poverty and under the conviction 
that he had been poorly paid for his services, he 
published, at the age of thirty-one, his great work 
entitled "What Is Property?" He maintained 
that property is the product of the laborer, and 
not of the capitalist, and that it had been taken 
from the laborer by legalized wrong or by the 
aid of monopolies and class legislation created by 
the state. The most celebrated sentence in his 
publication, and one that found a warm reception 
in the minds of not a few, was this : "Property 
is theft." That sentence constantly fell from the 
lips of his followers. The remedy that he recom- 
mended was, do away with all forms of govern- 
ment, and then each one can retain what his labor 
has produced. "Government of man by man in 
every form," he says, "is oppression." His log- 
ical conclusion was : "The true form of the state 
is anarchy." 

The other school of anarchism was headed by 
a Russian. Michael Bakounin, who was born in 
1814 and died in 1876, has the distinguished, but 
unenviable, honor of being the father of revolu- 
tionary, radical, red-handed, murderous anarch- 
ism. He came of an aristocratic, even princely, 
family. He was educated by his parents for the 
military service, and became an artillery officer, 
stationed in Poland. Finally he became disgust- 



ANARCHISM 125 

ed not only with Russian, but all forms of gov- 
ernment, and gave himself to a life of lawlessness 
and defiance of all forms of constituted authority. 
In 1843 ne visited Paris and made the acquaint- 
ance of Proudhon. He went from place to place 
on the continent of Europe and from one revolu- 
tionary party to another, and because of his in- 
consistencies he received the nickname of "The 
Mysterious Russian." He was frequently ar- 
rested, several times sentenced to be shot, and 
finally banished to Siberia. From Siberia he es- 
caped by way of Japan and the United States, 
and in i860 appeared in London. Aggrieved by 
his bitter experience in Siberia, he became more 
and more violent and revolutionary in his meth- 
ods. He joined the International in London and 
became the leader of its anarchistic wing against 
Marx, the leader of the Socialist wing. These 
two wings clashed in a congress of the Interna- 
tional at The Hague in 1872, and ever afterward 
were separate and distinct organizations. Ba- 
kounin was the very embodiment of revolution. 
Some who knew r him personally regarded him as 
a man of great intellectual ability, tremendous 
will power and untiring energy. Others consid- 
ered him as a man of no original thought, but 
hungry only for notoriety by whatever means it 
might be obtained. Here are some of the utter- 
ances of Bakounin : "We desire a universal rev- 
olution, the complete overthrow of government, 



126 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

so that not one stone of it shall remain upon an- 
other, first throughout Europe and then in the 
rest of the world. Raising the cry of peace for 
the workers, liberty for the oppressed, and death 
to tyrants, exploiters and patrons of all kinds, 
we wish to destroy all states and all churches, 
with all their institutions and laws, religious, po- 
litical, judicial, financial, magisterial, academical, 
economical and social, in order that all these mil- 
lions of poor human beings who are cheated, en- 
slaved, overworked and exploited — having been 
at last delivered from their masters and benefac- 
tors, whether ofhcial or officious, whether associa- 
tions or individuals — may henceforth and forever 
breathe in absolute freedom." Another quota- 
tion even more radical, if possible, is the follow- 
ing: "All reasonings about the future are crim- 
inal, because they hinder destruction pure and 
simple, and fetter the progress of the revolution. 
The revolutionist is a man under a vow. He 
ought to have no personal interests, no business, 
no feelings, no property. He ought to be entirely 
absorbed in one single interest, one single 
thought, one single passion — revolution. He has 
only one aim, one science — destruction. For that 
and for nothing else he studies mechanics, phys- 
ics, chemistry, and sometimes medicine. With 
the same object he observes men, characters, the 
situations and all the conditions of the social or- 
der. He despises and detests existing morality. 



ANARCHISM 127 

For him everything is moral that helps on the tri- 
umph of the revolution ; everything is immoral 
and criminal that hinders it. Between him and 
society there is war, war to the death, incessant, 
irreconcilable. He ought to be ready to die, to 
endure torture, and, with his own hands, to kill 
all who place obstacles in the way of the revolu- 
tion. He must prepare a list of those who are 
condemned to death and dispatch them in the or- 
der of their relative misdoings." Such were the 
words addressed by the father of extreme anarch- 
ism to those who followed him. And such is 
European anarchism to-day. 

American Anarchism. — But, you ask, have we 
any anarchism of the Bakounin sort in the United 
States, under this exceedingly liberal govern- 
ment? Most assuredly we have. It is found to- 
day in almost every nation under the sun. While 
Europe is the hot-house of anarchism and while 
it flourishes best in Latin countries, it is here in 
its most vicious form, found chiefly in the great 
cities, such as New York and Chicago. There 
are more hot-headed, desperate Anarchists in 
America than some are inclined to think, whose 
doctrine is : "Away with all authority, away with 
the state, away with the family, away with re- 
ligion." Some years ago the Internationals adopt- 
ed unanimously a manifesto at Pittsburg which, 
among other things, said this : "The church 
finally seeks to make complete idiots of the mass 



128 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

and to make them forego the paradise on earth by 
promising them a fictitious heaven." One of 
their organs, published in San Francisco, called 
Truth, says : "When the laboring men under- 
stand that the heaven which they are promised 
hereafter is but a mirage, they will knock at the 
door of the wealthy robber, with a musket in 
hand, and demand their share of the goods of 
this life." The Pittsburg manifesto again says : 
"Agitation for the purpose of organization; or- 
ganization for the purpose of rebellion. There 
remains but one recourse — force." The blas- 
phemous paper of Herr Most, one of the most ex- 
treme Anarchists in this country, says : "Relig- 
ion, authority and state are all carved out of the 
same piece of wood — to the devil with them all." 
In an interview with a reporter of the New York 
World, Mr. Most said : "Assassination is justi- 
fiable, terrorism is justifiable, anything is justifi- 
able by means of which anarchistic communism 
could be established." It is reported that one of 
the lawyers who defended the notorious Anarch- 
ists of Chicago a few years ago, when they were 
on trial for their lives, made this statement: 
"Gentlemen of the jury, we admit that the stat- 
utes of the State of Illinois have been broken by 
the conduct of our clients, but what right has the 
State of Illinois to impose any such limitations 
upon the employment of industrious men ? These 
Sunday laws are an abridgement of personal 



ANARCHISM 129 

privileges, and you know, gentlemen of the jury, 
that the people have come to their rights by rising 
against the tyranny of the law." Defiance of con- 
stituted authority, rebellion against law, hatred 
of God, of the church, of the home, of organized 
society, unbridled passion, this is the spirit of an- 
archism. 

Such Anarchists Outrank Satan Himself. — 
The blackest, the most infamous and contempti- 
ble ism that was ever born in hell is anarchism. 
We can not find language strong enough in the 
English literature, or in any other literature, to 
condemn this hideous, detestable, nauseous ism. 
It outranks Satan himself. The old, ancient Sa- 
tan is a back number in comparison with his mod- 
ern incarnations. Satan rebelled against law and 
instigated Adam and Eve to break the law of 
God, but he did it in a more gentlemanly way 
than the modern extreme Anarchist would do it. 
Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness, but he 
recognized authority. "All these kingdoms will I 
give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship 
me." Nor did he resort to violence that he might 
accomplish his purpose. The spirit of modern 
anarchism is having a deadly effect on reverence 
for law, is rendering life less valuable and less 
safe. Dr. Daniel Gregory, in his recent book, en- 
titled "Christ's Trumpet Call to the Ministry," 
says : "All who are interested in the welfare of 
humanity will do well to consider thoughtfully 



130 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

the statistics furnished by Mr. Henry C. Lea in 
the Forum of August, 1894. The record of ho- 
micides has gone on swelling in numbers until the 
annual total in Europe has reached 15,000, and in 
America 10,000 — in the United States alone av- 
eraging from 3,000 to 5,000. The record of 20,- 
000 to 25,000 murders annually in so-called 
Christian nations — surpassing the death roll of 
most of the great battles of the world, and rolling 
up a hundred Waterloos or Gettysburgs of death 
in a century — is assuredly frightful to contem- 
plate, while horribly emphasizing the age as the 
age of anarchism." That the taking of human 
life, that the spirit of lawlessness, that the dis- 
turbing forces in society, so prevalent in all the 
world today, are in large measure chargeable to 
anarchism there can be no doubt. 

What Should Be Done with Anarchists. — The 
question what should be done with such Anarch- 
ists as have been described has been, and is, a 
perplexing question. Of one thing I am certain : 
public sentiment, by pulpit and press, should be 
aroused against these men and in favor of a more 
strict obedience to law. Dr. Josiah Strong says : 
"When the popular conscience is properly edu- 
cated, public opinion, like the sun, is found to 
have its rays of heat as well as of light. And 
when they are focalized by pulpit or press as a 
mighty burning glass, that evil, no matter how 
deeply intrenched in human ignorance and preju- 



ANARCHISM 131 

dice and selfishness it may be, will at length 
scorch, and writhe, and smoke, and blaze, and 
consume away." It has been suggested again 
and again, as you know, that if the Anarchists 
could be collected together and compelled to live 
on some island purchased and given to them by 
the government, and cut off from the rest of the 
world, it would be a good thing to do. If that 
were practicable it would serve more than one 
good purpose. It would not only rid society of 
its greatest disturbing elements, but it would con- 
vince those who do not believe in a hell that there 
is a hell, after all. A society of Anarchists 
would make hell on earth. If you would see a 
picture of an anarchist community turn to the 
last half of the first chapter of Paul's letter to the 
Romans. After calling attention to nameless sins, 
he says : "And even as they did not like to retain 
God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a 
reprobate mind to do those things which are not 
convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, 
fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malicious- 
ness ; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, ma- 
lignity ; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, de- 
spiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, 
disobedient to parents, without understanding, 
covenant breakers, without natural affection, im- 
placable, unmerciful; who knowing the judgment 
of God, that they which commit such things are 



132 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

worthy of death, not only do the same, but have 
pleasure in them that do them." 

Let us turn our faces from such horrible pic- 
tures as these, the legitimate fruits of rebellion 
against law and defiance of constituted authority, 
to consider for a moment the results of obedience 
to law and reverence for authority, both human 
and divine. 

Government Essential to the Perfection of Hu- 
man Life. — The Bible most plainly and positively 
teaches us that government in some form, for 
the preservation of order, for the good of human- 
ity, for the promotion of righteousness, for the 
punishment of evil-doers and for the praise of 
them that do well, is ordained of God. It does 
not teach for each nation, or state, or community 
a particular form of government ; it does not say 
whether any particular people shall be governed 
by an emperor, or a king, or a president; but it 
does say that the powers that be are ordained of 
God, and that those who resist the powers with- 
stand the ordinance of God. Government, then, 
is not secular, but sacred ; not human, but divine ; 
and is not a terror to the good, but to the evil- 
doers. The very ones for whom law is intended 
and who make it necessary are the ones that chafe 
under and rebel against it. The three great di- 
vine institutions on earth are the family, the 
church and state. Each one of these institutions 
implies authority and is worthy of loyal obedi- 



ANARCHISM 133 

ence. And if obedience is not to become one of 
the lost arts, then let it be faithfully taught in 
the home. Wescott has well said : "The popular 
estimate of the family is an infallible criterion of 
the state of society. Heroes can not save a coun- 
try where the idea of the family is disregarded, 
and strong battalions are of no avail against 
homes guarded by faith, and reverence, and 
love." Let the virtue of obedience be learned in 
the home. Let the citizen be a law-abiding citi- 
zen. This is the teaching of God's Word. As 
one has said : "It matters not half so much what 
kind of a vote you drop into the ballot box once a 
year, as what kind of a man you drop out of bed 
into the street every morning." 

History is proof of the fact that government is 
essential to the protection of human society and 
the perfection of human life. The best men in 
any and all communities are law-abiding men. 
Men who respect the office of those who are in 
authority, if not the officers themselves. Men, 
too, who favor not violent, but reasonable and or- 
derly methods of getting rid of rulers who do 
not govern for the good of society. The men 
who reach the highest perfection of character, 
other things being equal, are the men who re- 
spect and obey the laws of God and man, and 
who, like our Lord, are able to say, under all cir- 
cumstances of life : "Nevertheless, not my will, 
but Thine, be done." 



134 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

Not soon will this Nation forget — nor yet the 
whole world — the striking contrast between an- 
archism and Christianity, between a product of 
defiance to authority and a product of loyal citi- 
zenship, which took place in Buffalo in connec- 
tion with the Pan-American. The black-hearted 
and red-handed assassin, the modern Judas Isca- 
riot, whose name is not worthy to be mentioned, 
pressing his way through the crowd, and, under 
the pretense of friendliness, reaching forth his 
hand and firing the bullet — and McKinley, who 
had such reverence for law, said to the people, 
even when falling to the floor : "Don't hurt him ; 
let the law take its course." What a lesson on 
reverence for law, on submission to authority, on 
love of God and home and native land did Mc- 
Kinley, our late Christian President, teach us 
during his last days. "Not our will, but His, be 
done." 



BUDDHISM, 

Or, The Light of Asia and the Light of the 
World. 

He was a burning and a shining light. John 5 135. 

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the 
light of the world : he that followeth me shall not walk 
in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John 



BUDDHISM is generally recognized, not 
only as the most extensive, but as the best 
of all the ancient systems of religion. It is per- 
haps not too much to say that the teachings of 
Buddha stand nearest to, and at the same time 
the farthest from, the teachings of the Christ. 
With this ism are associated the hopes and aspi- 
rations and most sacred feelings of more than 
four hundred and seventy-five millions of people, 
nearly one-third of the human family. For 
twenty-four centuries it has prevailed through a 
large part of India, Ceylon, Siam and Burma, 
Thibet and Nepal, China and Japan. 

Origin of Buddhism. — Buddhism arose out of 
the philosophical and ethical teachings of Sid- 
dhartha Gautama, the eldest son of the chief of 
the tribe of the Sakyas, an Aryan clan on the 



136 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

banks of the Kohana, about fifty miles from the 
foot of the Himalaya Mountains. There are con- 
flicting opinions in the east, and also among west- 
ern scholars, as to the date of his birth. Mr. 
Edwin Arnold, who, in his famous poem, calls 
him "The Light of Asia," has fixed upon 620 B. 
C. as the date of his birth. Mr. Dharmapala, the 
representative of Buddhism, in his memorable 
address in the parliament of religions at the time 
of the World's Fair at Chicago, says that Siddhar- 
tha, the founder of Buddhism, was born 543 
years before the advent of Christ. He further 
says : "The air was full of a coming spiritual 
struggle. Hundreds of the most scholarly young 
men of noble families were leaving their homes 
in quest of truth. It was a time of deep and 
many-sided intellectual movements, which ex- 
tended from the circles of Brahmanical thinkers 
far into the people at large. And, in the words of 
Dr. Oldenberg: "When the dialectic of skep- 
ticism began to attack moral ideas, when a pain- 
ful longing for deliverance from the burden of 
being was met by the first signs of moral decay, 
Buddha appeared." 

Not unfrequently do we find the legendary and 
miraculous gathering like a halo around the early 
history of religious leaders, until the sober truth 
runs the risk of being neglected for the glittering 
falsehood. Siddhartha Gautama has not escaped 
the fate which has befallen the founders of other 



BUDDHISM 137 

religions. The legends represent him, after thou- 
sands of preparatory births, deciding to leave the 
deities with whom he was associating and to be 
born once more into the world. ''Yea, spake he, 
now I go to help the world, this last of many 
times, for birth and death end hence for me and 
those who learn my law. I will go down among 
the Sakyas." He is represented as choosing his 
parents, a certain king and queen of great dignity 
and piety. When the natal hour arrived, strange 
signs announced the advent. Nature altered her 
course to keep a shadow over his cradle, while 
the sages from afar came and worshiped him. 
One legend says : "At his birth, ten thousand 
worlds were filled with light, the blind received 
their sight, the deaf heard, the lame walked, the 
imprisoned were set free, the trees burst forth in 
blossom, the air was filled with sweet songs of 
birds, and even the fires of hell were for the time 
being extinguished.'' 

Philosophy of Gautama. — But when the early 
story of his life is divested of the countless fables 
in which it has been decked, Gautama is present- 
ed to us simply as a man of gentle, ardent, pen- 
sive, philanthropic nature. Descended from a 
royal house, among one of the most cultured peo- 
ples of India, he was nurtured in the lap of lux- 
ury, with the prospect of unbroken happiness. 
At the age of nineteen he was married to his 
cousin Yasodhara, and afterwards confessed that, 



138 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

during a previous life on the earth, he had met 
with and loved her, and that this affection would 
be eternal. He said: "Lo, as hid seed shoots 
after rainless years, so good and evil, pains and 
pleasures, hates and loves, and all dead deeds 
come forth again, bearing bright leaves or dark, 
sweet fruit or sour. Thus I was he, and she, 
Yasodhara. And while the wheel of birth and 
death turns round, that which hath been must be, 
between us two." 

After his marriage he lived for a time at ease 
and with all that heart could desire in his father's 
palace. He finally, however, grew weary of the 
luxuries and displays of court life. He was al- 
lowed many privileges, and had gone out and 
seen much of the world. The scenes of poverty, 
distress and sin had made a profound impression 
on his mind. The ever-darkening pictures which 
he drew of human wretchedness had filled his 
heart with sadness bordering on despair. He 
had been accustomed to say : "Nothing is stable 
on earth, nothing is real. Life is like the spark 
produced by the friction of wood. It is lighted 
and it is extinguished ; we know not whence it 
came and whither it goes. It is like the sound of a 
lyre, and the wise man asks in vain whence it 
came and whither it goes. There must be some 
supreme intelligence where we could find rest. 
If I attained to it, I could bring light to man ; if 
I were free myself, I could deliver the world." 



BUDDHISM 139 

With this hope and being moved thereto by four 
visions, he abandoned all and sought the way by 
which he could save mankind. 

Gautama's Visions. — Driving through the east- 
ern gate of the city one day to one of his father's 
pleasure parks, he met an old man, broken in 
health. He said to his coachman : "Who is that 
man? His flesh and his blood are dried up, his 
muscles stick to his skin, his head is white, his 
teeth chatter, his body is wasted away. Is there 
something peculiar in his family, or is this the 
common lot of all created beings?" "Sir," re- 
plied the coachman, "that man is sinking under 
old age, suffering has destroyed his strength, and 
he is despised by his relations. He is without 
support and useless, and people have abandoned 
him like a dead tree in a forest. But this is not 
peculiar to his family. In every creature, youth 
is defeated by old age. This is the appointed end 
of all creatures." "Alas !" replied Gautama ; 
"coachman, turn my chariot quickly. What have 
I to do with pleasure?" Driving through the 
southern gate on another occasion, he met a man 
suffering from illness, parched with fever, fright- 
ened at the very sight of himself and the ap- 
proach of death. Having questioned his coach- 
man and having received the answer he expected, 
he said : "Where is the wise man who could any 
longer think of joy or pleasure?" And he turned 
back to the city. Driving one day through the 



140 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

western gate, he met a funeral procession, saw 
the dead body on the bier and friends round ft 
crying, covering their heads with dust and strik- 
ing their breasts. Gautama exclaimed : "O woe 
to youth, that must be destroyed by old age ; woe 
to health, that must be destroyed by so many dis- 
eases ! Woe to this life, where a man remains so 
short a time! Oh, if there were no old age, no 
disease, no death! Let us turn back from our 
pleasure trip," he said. "I must think how to 
accomplish deliverance." Driving through the 
northern gate on another occasion, he met a men- 
dicant, who appeared calm and subdued, wearing 
with an air of dignity his religious vestment, and 
carrying an alms-bowl. "Who is this man?" 
asked Gautama. "Sir," replied the coachman, 
"this man has renounced all pleasures, all desires, 
and leads a life of austerity. He tries to conquer 
himself. He has become a devotee. Without 
passion, without envy, he walks about asking for 
alms." "This is good and well said," replied 
Gautama. "The life of a devotee has always 
been praised by the wise. It will be my life and 
the refuge of other creatures. It will lead us to 
a real life, to happiness and immortality." 

The Great Renunciation. — Gautama Siddhar- 
tha was now at the age of thirty, standing face to 
face with the crisis of his life, "The great renun- 
ciation." It was hard for him to abandon his 
friends, his father's palace, his wife and child, 






BUDDHISM 141 

for whom he had great affection. But it must be 
done. The most pathetic incident in his life was 
that midnight experience when he went into the 
sleeping apartment of his wife and child, walked 
quietly round their bed again and again, "as if it 
were an altar," fearing to waken them, lest he 
might be persuaded to give up the purpose of his 
life. He kissed the sleeping ones farewell and 
went out to become a homeless wanderer. To the 
coachman, — 

"Speak low," Siddhartha said, "and bring my horse ; 
For now the hour is come when I should quit 
This golden prison, where my heart lives caged, 
To find the truth ; which henceforth I shall seek 
For all men's sake, until the truth be found." 

Having passed through the gate and having 
sent his coachman back, he sought the compan- 
ionship of the priests of Brahmanism, learned 
their penances and torture. Soon, however, he 
discovered that Brahmanism was radically 
wrong. He then repaired to a quiet spot by the 
banks of a river, and for six years practiced the 
most severe fasting and profound meditation, go- 
ing out, of course, occasionally with his alms- 
bowl, as all the hermits did. For years he was 
only an inquirer after that saving knowledge 
which should raise him above a world of wretch- 
edness, disease and death. One day, under the 
shade of the bodhi tree, he devoted himself to re- 



142 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

ligious meditation, passed through successive 
stages of ecstasy, and suddenly there burst upon 
his mind the knowledge of his previous births in 
different forms, the cause of re-birth, which is 
ignorance, the root of evil, and unsatisfied de- 
sires. Along with this knowledge there came the 
knowledge of the way to extinguish desires, by 
right thinking, right living, not by outward ob- 
servances of forms and ceremonies. He thinks 
now he has reached perfect wisdom. He is 
emancipated and is "Buddha the Enlightened." 
Now he resolves to teach. For forty-five years 
he travels from place to place, makes disciples 
everywhere, lays down rules for them and works 
out his plan of salvation. In his first sermon he 
claimed that sorrow is in self ; therefore, the way 
to get rid of sorrow is to get rid of self. He vis- 
ited his wife, who became a disciple and the first 
Buddhist nun. He died at the age of eighty, 
after having preached 84,000 sermons, and after 
having worked out the ethical and moral system 
of the greatest of the heathen religions. 

Teachings of Buddha. — Let us now consider 
a few of the characteristic doctrines of this mar- 
velous ism. "Buddhism," says the author of its 
accepted catechism, "teaches goodness without a 
God, existence without a soul, immortality with- 
out life, happiness without a heaven, salvation 
without a Savior, redemption without a Re- 
deemer, and worship without rites." 



BUDDHISM 143 

It is a dreamy pietism. The elemental princi- 
ple of Buddhism is to escape from the misery of 
existence. The central doctrine, the goal of all 
its hopes, the end of all its struggles is "Nir- 
vana." The great question with Buddha was 
how to get out of the misery of existence into 
Nirvana. He claimed that he had found the way 
and each man was to work out his own salvation, 
not by rites and ceremonies, not by sacrifices, but 
by self-mastery. He believed that the sensible 
forms around him ought not to exist, they had 
no right to be, and therefore, since they are, they 
must be evil. And the object was accordingly 
to liberate all sentient beings from their bondage. 
He taught that in order to be purified and fitted 
for Nirvana the soul must pass through an infi- 
nite succession of births, must exist in mortal 
forms, sometimes in other human beings, some- 
times in animals, and in every state of existence 
be subject to sorrow, disease, misery, death. The 
final state of supreme blessedness, the end of a 
long and weary transmigration would be attained 
when one reached Nirvana. 

But what is Nirvana? Literally it means "a 
blowing out," just as you would blow out a can- 
dle. The doctrine of nothingness, then, seems to 
be the issue and crown of being. The word Nir- 
vana represents this final state, whatever it may 
be, and the passages in the Arnold poem which 
refer to it breathe a pantheistic spirit and lead one 



144 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

to feel that absorption in the universal soul was 
the hope set by this great moralist before his dis- 
ciples. What a gloomy religion it is. What a 
miserable conception of the supreme good, only 
rest, unthinking repose, a state of nonentity, ab- 
solute stillness, a dreamless rest. What a cheat- 
ing reward for all the struggles in a succession 
of migrations for self-mastery. 

But while the philosophy of Buddhism is the 
philosophy of despair in reference to the here- 
after, we are constrained to acknowledge that it 
rose in some respects superior to all other heathen 
systems in the loftier tones of its morality. It 
was a practical, not a speculative philosophy, 
concerning itself not with God and the invisible, 
but with the charities and duties of the present 
life. Herein we find the secret of its mightiness, 
the key to its majestic progress in the whole of 
eastern Asia. Here are some of the ethical teach- 
ings of Buddha from the translations of Sanskrit 
scholars : "There is no fire like passion ; there 
is no shark like hatred ; there is no snare like 
folly." 

"Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time ; 
hatred ceases by love." 

"He who lives looking for pleasure only, his 
senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his enjoy- 
ments, idle and weak, Mara (the tempter) will 
certainly overcome him, as the wind throws down 
a weak tree." 



BUDDHISM 145 

"The fool who knows his foolishness is wise so 
far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is 
called a fool indeed." 

"If one man conquer in battle a thousand times 
a thousand men, and if another conquer himself, 
he is the greatest of conquerors." 

"The wise who control their body, who con- 
trol their tongue, who control their mind, are in- 
deed well controlled." 

Self-restraint and purity, 
The knowledge of the noble truths, 
The realization of Nirvana, 
This is the greatest blessing. 

Buddha taught his disciples to be kind to 
everything that lives, never to take the life of any 
living being, to be patient and forgiving, to avoid 
covetousness, and never to tire of self-reflection. 
His fundamental principles are purity of mind, 
chastity of life, truthfulness, temperance, sincer- 
ity, benevolence, unselfishness, love. Thus we 
see that while the true idea of God may be lost, a 
sense of moral obligation remains. As one has 
said: "Buddha was a missionary of ethics, an 
apostle of righteousness, a reformer of abuses, a 
tender and compassionate man. He did not know 
that there is a personal God, but he did know 
that peace and rest are the result of virtuous 
thoughts and actions." When we consider the 
age in which he lived and the exalted ethics 



146 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

which he taught, and the unselfish spirit which 
he manifested, we must grant to him an exalted 
place among the moralists and reformers of the 
world. There is some reason, at least, for Mr. 
Arnold's title given to him, 'The Light of Asia." 
Christ, the Light of the World. — And yet what 
a miserable light is Buddha in comparison with 
the Christ. Neither he nor any of the sons of 
men, not even the apostles, are worthy to be com- 
pared with the Son of God. For they are to Him 
"As moonlight is to sunlight and as water is to 
wine." Gas light is very useful in its way, but 
it is a poor apology for the sun. It gives light in 
the midst of the street, but turn the corner and 
you are in deep shadows directly. Christ is not 
only a Teacher among the teachers, a Prophet 
among the prophets, a Leader among the leaders, 
but He is Divine, and hence speaks with author- 
ity. He came not as did Buddha, to learn, but to 
teach, not to disturb, but to settle. In Him is 
yea. Talk about the "Light of Asia." Look at 
India as it is to-day. India had that light, and 
here are some of the glimmerings of that wonder- 
ful light about which Arnold sings : No schools 
for women. No schools for children. To teach 
a woman is one of the five great sins. The high- 
est honor that can be bestowed upon a wife is to 
be a slave to her husband. Her first privilege 
after serving him with his breakfast is to kiss his 
sacred feet. At night her highest honor is to 



BUDDHISM 147 

wash his feet and then drink the dirty water for 
purification. There are to-day 23,000,000 
widows in India. Six million of these are chil- 
dren under ten years of age. Widows in India 
do not remarry. Only God knows the horrors of 
India widowhood. The stars look down on no 
blacker picture than the 140,000,000 women in 
India suffering under the blessings ( ?) of "The 
light of Asia." Buddhism as a religion is a fail- 
ure. It has multiplied lazy fraternities and use- 
less retreats. It is opposed to thrift and indus- 
try. Its priests are paupers, clothed in rags, beg- 
ging from door to door. It produces drones, 
idlers and religious vagabonds. Talk not of the 
light of Asia, nor yet of the light of nature. 
They have the light of nature in China, Korea 
and India. But it brings no light to their dark- 
ened hearts; it hangs no star in the sky of their 
eternity ; it flashes no ray through the gloom of 
their lives. The light of nature has brought to 
those lands, Ganges to drown, Juggernaut to 
crush, funeral pyre to strangle, idol furnaces to 
burn, swords to slay. The light of nature left 
Fiji to roll in fratricide, left Samoa to wallow in 
beastliness and Greenland to be butchered by can- 
nibalism. There is only one great light, Christ, 
the Son of God. He throws light on sin, salva- 
tion, immortality. He speaks to us of a personal 
God, calls Him Father, His Father and ours. 
The star of Bethlehem is rising even on the night 



148 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

of Asia. Some years ago two Congressmen in 
Washington used to meet every week to talk 
about the immortality of the soul. But they de- 
spised the Bible. They found no comfort. Their 
terms expired. They went home. Years after- 
ward they met in Washington at the President's 
levee. One of them said: "John, any light?" 
"No light," was the answer. The other one said : 
"Henry, any light?" "No light," was the reply. 
They said nothing more. They parted to meet 
at the judgment. Are there any here to-night 
who have swung off from the Bible and Calvary ? 
Oh, friend, let Christ put into your hands the 
torch of heaven. It will light you through the 
twilight of that last day, up that last mountain, 
down that last valley, across that last river. 
Throw open the door and let this light come in, 
and you will one day exclaim : Blessed light, 
glorious sunrise, eternal day, home at last, where 
they do not need the light of candle or sun, for 
the Lord God Himself is the light thereof. 



MOHAMMEDANISM, 

Or, The Crescent and the Cross. 

Then said Jesus unto him, put up again thy sword 
into his place : for all they that take the sword shall 
perish with the sword. Matthew 26 152. 



M 



OHAMMEDANISM awakens in an in- 
quiring mind a special interest and peculiar 
curiosity. How can we account for the fact that 
in so short a time the Arabian tribes, hitherto at 
war among themselves, were united in one faith, 
consolidated into one nation, brought into the 
light of history and wielded an almost irresisti- 
ble force against the powerful nations of the 
world? Certainly the man who brought these 
things to pass was one of the remarkable men of 
history. He must have had the rare gift of nat- 
ural empire. As we consider this subject we 
shall probably be able to agree with James Free- 
man Clark, who says : 'To him more than to 
any other of whom history makes mention was 
given 

"The monarch mind, the mystery of commanding 

The birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon. 
Of wielding, molding, gathering, welding, banding, 
The hearts of thousands till they moved as one." 



150 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

His Early Life. — Mohammed, the prophet, au- 
thor of Islam and founder of the Arabian com- 
monwealth, was born five hundred and seventy 
years after the advent of Christ. His parents 
belonged to the highest Arabian aristocracy. 
Early in life, however, he was left an orphan, 
without means of support. An uncle had com- 
passion on him, took him to his home and cared 
for him during his youthful years. He was 
kindly treated, but shared the hardships of a 
large and very poor family. He herded sheep 
and gathered wild berries in the desert. Fre- 
quently he made long journeys with his uncle to 
distant fairs in Syria, where he probably became 
acquainted with the Holy Scriptures. This is 
about all we know of his youth. All else is le- 
gend, containing at most only fragments of truth. 

In his twenty-fifth year, on the recommenda- 
tion of his uncle, he entered the house and busi- 
ness of a wealthy widow, Khadija by name. By 
reason of his personal beauty, which was univer- 
sally confessed to be remarkable, and by reason 
of his intelligence and good spirit, he won the 
heart of the young widow, and in due time she 
became his wife. This alliance made him second 
to none in the capital of Arabia. 

Religious Meditations. — The next fifteen years 
of his life, from twenty-five to forty, were spent 
chiefly in religious meditation. Great thoughts 
began to take possession of his soul. He came to 



MOHAMMEDANISM 1 5 1 

believe that there was but one Supreme God, and 
that there could be no genuine morality without 
a sense of personal obligation to Him. His spirit 
began to burn with righteous indignation against 
the idolatry, the polytheism and gross immorality 
of his countrymen. These meditations led him 
at length to enter the field of reform. When first 
he told his countrymen the story of his solemn 
meditations, religious convictions and experi- 
ences, he was laughed to scorn. He succeeded 
poorly. They would not even admit the necessity 
of reform. Only his wife sympathized with and 
encouraged him. He dreamed dreams, saw 
visions and had revelations. Finally, at the ma- 
ture age of forty, and in the fullness of his pow- 
ers, he began to preach everywhere, "There is 
but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet." 
He fancied that he was the ambassador of this 
one God, as the Jewish prophets were; that he 
was even greater than they, inasmuch as his mis- 
sion was to remove idolatry from his people and 
introduce among them a new religion. His rela- 
tives, all except his devoted wife, tried to dis- 
suade him from what they considered a wild, fa- 
natical career. Yet zealously he labored on for 
three years, preaching the doctrine of monothe- 
ism in the face of the polytheism of his country- 
men. But with all his eloquence, and zeal, and 
evident sincerity, he succeeded in winning only 
thirteen converts in three years. His friends then 



152 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

said to him, Why attack idols? Why destroy 
your popularity ? Why make such a fool of your- 
self? Your countrymen are all against you. 
They are not in favor of reform. You are just 
wasting your time. Then exclaimed the prophet : 
"If the sun stood on my right hand and the moon 
on my left, ordering me to hold my peace, I 
would still declare, there is but one God." Al- 
though persecuted and ridiculed, he held steadily 
on his way. He was a man of indomitable will. 
At length violent persecutions set in. He was 
regarded a lunatic, a demented and dangerous 
man, because he professed to believe in one per- 
sonal God. The Arabian priests were fiercely set 
against him because he had laid hands on their 
gods. His uncle and faithful wife had died. The 
way seemed dark. Forty picked men had banded 
themselves together and had sworn to take his 
life. The question with him was, "What shall I 
do? Remain here at Mecca and die before my 
mission is scarcely begun? Or shall I betake 
myself to some other place?" He determined to 
seek a new country, to try a new field. He fled 
to Medina. Here he found some Jews and some 
nominal Christians. At Medina he was cordially 
welcomed, and soon found himself surrounded 
with enthusiastic followers. Here he built a 
mosque on the spot where his camel voluntarily 
knelt, which is to this day called the Mosque of 
Mohammed. His flight to Medina occurred in 



MOHAMMEDANISM 153 

the year 622 A. D., and is called the Hegira, 
from which time Moslem dates its origin. 

At this time a great change took place in the 
life and teachings of Mohammed. During the 
years of his persecution at Mecca he did the 
work of a reformer, and is justly entitled to the 
name. He introduced a system of religion in 
those days superior to what previously existed. 
It was probably during these years that he wrote 
the Koran. 

Mohammed's Doctrines. — The Koran was 
probably the weakest performance of his life. It 
has no historical value. A curious book, and yet 
a book which contains some things in common 
with Judaism and Christianity. It was during 
those early years that he taught such wholesome 
principles as these : "The worship of images is 
idolatry. Idolatry of all kinds is of supreme ab- 
horrence." He taught chastity, charity, justice 
and forbearance. He taught that humility, be- 
nevolence and self-abnegation were some of the 
greatest virtues. He advised his disciples to cul- 
tivate the habit of returning good for evil, to re- 
strain their passions, to bridle their tongues, to 
be submissive to God's will. He enjoined 
prayers, fastings and meditations as a means of 
grace. He advocated the necessity of rest on the 
seventh day. And all these doctrines he endeav- 
ored to enforce by moral suasion only. Up to the 
time of his flight to Medina there is no question 



154 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

but that he did a great and good work, though he 
won but few followers. One could wish that he 
might have died before the hegira. 

At the time of his first great success in Medina 
Satan seems to have possessed him. He became 
exceedingly wild and visionary. He made some 
of the most absurd claims known to history, and 
introduced the most intolerant religion. He 
claimed that he had been favored with new reve- 
lations and had enjoyed new and transcendent 
privileges. He had been carried to Jerusalem on 
a flying steed to visit all the prophets of God; 
had ascended into the seventh heaven and had 
held personal conversation with Gabriel. He 
now claimed that man could propitiate God and 
atone for his own sins by penitence and pilgrim- 
ages to the black stone and to Mecca. His reve- 
lations now adapted themselves to his needs, and 
on all occasions, even whenever he wanted to 
take an extra wife, inspiration came to his aid. 
He introduced polygamy, the vice of eastern na- 
tions from remote periods. He made compro- 
mises ; he adapted his religious system to the de- 
praved hearts of his countrymen. He inflamed 
the imaginations of the Arabians with visions 
of sensual joy. Every faithful follower should 
have four wives and as many female servants as 
he could support. A sensual paradise was pic- 
tured in glowing colors. It was believed that in 
paradise every faithful follower would have 80,- 



MOHAMMEDANISM 155 

000 servants and seventy-two wives in addition 
to those that he had on earth. 

Appealed to Passion. — But a worse thing than 
this, if possible, the prophet of Arabia did when 
he resorted to the sword; when he incited the 
martial passions of the wild, fierce and warlike 
Arabians in the propagation of his doctrines. 
From this time on Mohammed becomes a politi- 
cian, the head of a party, contriving expedients 
for its success. Hitherto his only weapon was 
truth ; now his weapon is force. Instead of con- 
vincing those who oppose him, he will compel 
them to submit by the terror of his power. Now 
his fortunes rise, but his character degenerates. 
The sword leads and the Koran follows. Goethe 
says of Mohammed : "What in his character is 
earthly increases and develops itself. The divine 
retires and is obscured. His doctrine becomes a 
means rather than an end ; all kinds of practices 
are employed. Nor are horrors wanting." 

Inflamed to the highest point, the Arabians en- 
tered the field as warlike missionaries, ready to 
extend the new religion to the ends of the earth. 
In his memorable manifesto Mohammed said: 
"Different prophets have been sent of God to 
illustrate His different attributes; Moses His 
providence, Solomon His wisdom, Christ His 
righteousness, but I, the last of the prophets, am 
sent with the sword. Let those who promulgate 
my faith enter into no arguments or discussions, 



156 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

but slay all who refuse obedience. Whoever 
fights for the true faith, whether he fall or con- 
quer, will assuredly receive a glorious reward, 
for the sword is the key of heaven. All who 
draw it in defense of the faith shall receive tem- 
poral and future blessings. Every drop of their 
blood, every peril, every hardship, will be reg- 
istered on high as more meritorious than fasting 
and prayer. If they fall in battle their sins shall 
be washed away, and they shall be transported 
into paradise to revel in eternal pleasures." 

What a monstrous doctrine this ! And what 
were the results? To make a long story short, 
the Saracens, whose martial heroism had been 
thus inspired, sallied forth first against Mecca, 
the city that had persecuted and rejected the 
prophet, and then against one city after another, 
until within eleven years all Arabia lay at his feet. 
His appeal to conscience made not more than 
twenty converts in thirteen years. His appeal to 
the sword conquered a great nation in eleven 
years. 

But this did not suffice. The holy war must be 
waged against other nations. The great powers 
of the world must fall before the onward march 
of the Saracens. Such was the ambition of Mo- 
hammed. But just before the expedition, 
equipped by himself, started on its invasion of 
Greece, death overtook him on June the 8th, 632, 



MOHAMMEDANISM 157 

in the sixty-second year of his age. Will the con- 
quests planned by the great leader now come to 
a dead stop? By no means. Strange as it may 
seem, his influence after his death was even 
greater than it was before. The Califs continued 
the work with wild and fierce ambition, before 
whose generals the armies of the Greeks melted 
away. "The cross waned before the crescent." 
With unprecedented rapidity the cause of Mo- 
hammedanism spread northward and westward. 
Damascus, then Palestine, and finally all Syria 
yielded to the Califs. Jerusalem fell in 636. On 
the site of Solomon's Temple they built "the 
Dome of the Rock," the Mosque of Omar. But 
this does not suffice. Dr. John Lord, in his "Bea- 
con Lights of History," says : "Nor did Sara- 
cenic conquests end until the Arabs of the desert 
had penetrated southward into India farther than 
had Alexander the Great, and westward until 
they had subdued the northern kingdom of Af- 
rica and carried their arms to the pillars of Her- 
cules ; yea, to the cities of the Goths, in Spain, 
and were only finally arrested in Europe by the 
heroism of Charles Martel. Such were the rapid 
conquests of the Saracens in Asia and Africa, 
under the stimulus of religious fanaticism, until 
they had reduced 36,000 cities, towns and castles 
and built 14,000 mosques." 



158 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

In view of all this, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
exclaimed : 

Utter the song, O my soul ; the flight and return of Mo- 
hammed, 

Prophet and priest, who scattered abroad both evil and 
blessing, 

Huge wasteful empires founded, and hallowed by slow 
persecution, 

Soul-withering, but crushed the blasphemous rites of 
the Pagans. 

Cold and Merciless. — Mohammed did turn the 
Arabians from idolatry, from polytheism to mon- 
otheism. But in doing so he introduced the most 
cruel system of religion the world has ever 
known. Mohammedanism is cold and merciless. 
It encourages pride and cruelty. It makes reli- 
gion submissive to despotism. It degrades wom- 
en. It makes men tyrants or slaves. It keeps 
back the nations that have embraced it. It re- 
tards civilization. The Turks, whose character- 
istic symbol is the crescent, are the most zealous 
of the Moslems. Their history is traced in blood. 
In every land and country they have distin- 
guished themselves for hatred and oppression. 
Their triumphs are the triumphs of brute force. 
Mohammedanism was established by the sword 
and it seems destined to perish by the sword. 
Any religion that has to be defended and propa- 
gated by force of arms can not, in the very nature 
of things, stand forever. The whole fabric of 



MOHAMMEDANISM 159 

Mohammedanism, especially in its political rela- 
tions, seems to be tottering and crumbling, and 
threatens some time to fall in ruins. It will be a 
blessing to humanity when that day comes. And 
yet this ism has at Cairo one of the largest uni- 
versities in the world, where ten thousand stu- 
dents are gathered, preparing to go as mission- 
aries of the Moslem faith. This university is nine 
hundred years old — older than Oxford. Fur- 
thermore, this ism has a following of about 200,- 
000,000, and from all over Moslemdon once a 
year great caravans go to Mecca to visit the 
birthplace of their prophet. 

How do we account for the unparalleled pro- 
gress of Mohammedanism? In a word, its tri- 
umphs were due not to its lofty ideals, but to its 
harmony with the prevailing corruptions of the 
Arabians. So long as Mohammed preached truth 
and righteousness he had slow progress. But 
when he invoked demoralizing passions his cause 
went with leaps and bounds. 

Why does not Christianity make more rapid 
progress? Because it is a religion which makes 
no compromises. It does not pander to the lust- 
ful passions of men. It cuts across the grain of 
human nature. Its founder said : 'Tut up thy 
sword." My truth is to be propagated not with 
carnal weapons. The spirit of the crescent is 
hatred. The spirit of the cross is love. The 
spirit of the crescent is revenge. The spirit of 



i6o ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 



the cross is forgiveness. Revenge said to Peter, 
Unsheath thy sword against the enemies of 
Christ. Forgiveness said, Put up thy sword. 
Hatred said of the woman who had sinned, Stone 
her to death. She is not fit to live. Love said, 
Go and sin no more. The law put the thief on 
the cross. Love said, To-day shalt thou be with 
me in paradise. The crescent means cruelty. 
The cross means kindness. The crescent means 
selfishness. The cross means sacrifice. The 
crescent says surrender. The cross says trust. 
Nearly nineteen hundred years ago Paul said: 
"God forbid that I should glory save in the cross 
of our Lord Jesus Christ." The church has 
caught the echo of that noble declaration and has 
set it to music, and we have been singing and 
shall continue to sing : 

In the cross of Christ I glory, 
Towering o'er the wrecks of time ; 

All the lights of sacred story 
Gather round its head sublime. 

Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure, 

By the cross are sanctified ; 
Peace is there that knows no measure, 

Joys that through all time abide. 



MOHAMMEDANISM 161 

How grandly and gloriously does Calvary ac- 
tualize the poet's vision, who says : 

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form 
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

May it be our constant hope and prayer that 
the cross may soon gain a peaceful, bloodless tri- 
umph over the crescent. 



PESSIMISM, 
Or, The Mystery of Suffering. 

Clouds and darkness are round about him; righteous- 
ness and judgment are the foundation of his throne. 
Psalm 97 :2. 

Many there be that say, who will show us any good? 
Psalm 4:6. 

For our light affliction, which is for the moment, 
worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal 
weight of glory, while we look not at the things which 
are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the 
things which are seen are temporal, but the things which 
are not seen are eternal. 2 Cor. 4:17-18. 



THE lives of human beings are like the waves 
that break upon the shore, one generation 
following swift upon the course of another, re- 
peating the same evolutions and crumbling and 
vanishing in the same way. The story of life, 
with its shadows and sunshine, its victories and 
defeats, its joys and sorrows, is repeated over 
and over to each generation, and is fresh and 
new to it alone. Carlyle, in writing to Emerson, 
shortly after each had lost his mother, said: 
"You, too, have lost your dear old mother, who, 
like mine, stayed with you clear to the last. Alas, 



PESSIMISM 163 

alas, it is the oldest law of nature, and it comes 
on every one of us with a strong originality, as if 
it had never happened before." So closely con- 
nected with suffering is life, so impossible it is 
for us to escape from sorrow, that we feel the 
force of Shelley's words : 

We look before and after 

And pine for what is not, 
E'en our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught, 
Our sweetest songs are those 

Which tell of saddest thought. 

During all the centuries gone, humanity has 
been looking through its tears on the problem of 
suffering, and, with aching heart and weary 
brain, has been painfully seeking its solution. 

A Pessimistic View of Life. — Many of our fel- 
low-men have asked again and again, Why is it 
that there is so much of suffering and wretched- 
ness in this life? And not finding satisfactory 
answers to these questions, they have come to en- 
tertain pessimistic views of life. They look on 
the dark side of every problem at the expense of 
the bright, and speak in the language of despond- 
ency. They see the ills of life, but not the good. 
They take their happiness as a matter of course, 
but bitterly complain of their miseries. The 
shortest night eclipses the longest day. One 
stormy day drowns the recollection of a dozen 



164 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

clear ones. Even in the midst of their joys, they 
are like the man who could not really appreciate 
a charming, clear day because he regarded it a 
weather breeder. There were some in David's 
time and there are some in our time who say, 
"Who will show us any good?" To them it 
seems that this earth is full of the "habitations 
of cruelty," and that the world is going from 
bad to worse. Not only did the Englishman ex- 
press his own feelings, but the feelings of many 
others, when he asked the question: "Is life 
worth the living?" An American wit has made 
answer : "That depends upon the liver." Life, 
after all, depends very largely on what one 
chooses to make it. If we want to, we can find 
reasons for complaining and despairing. Pess- 
imism, as a system, seems to have begun in oppo- 
sition to the optimistic theory advocated by Leib- 
nitz. Some of the advocates of this irrational 
and paralyzing ism went so far as to say that 
"The Creator had, from a variety of possible 
worlds, chosen to make the worst one that could 
be made, and that, in fact, it is worse than none 
at all." Von Hartmann, although he could not 
take this radical view, was nevertheless an advo- 
cate of pessimism, and argued that it would have 
been better if the world could have been worse 
than it is, for if it had been only slightly more 
wretched, humanity before this would have 
taken its fate in its own hands, and by a supreme 



PESSIMISM 165 

act of annihilation would have put an end to the 
tragedy. He assumes that all existence is an 
evil, and that pleasure is negative, while pain 
is absolutely positive. But even this poor hope is 
called in question by Bahnsen, a pessimist more 
radical and thorough-going than Von Hartmann, 
who insists that as the human race, by annihilat- 
ing itself, could hardly annihilate the power 
which originated all things, the w T orld and exist- 
ence must continue irrational and miserable 
throughout eternity. It is claimed that the evils 
of existence are just as great and as hopeless as 
they were centuries ago, and that any expectation 
of improvement in the condition of humanity is 
utterly baseless. Consequently, we are shut up 
to a reign of cruelty by a heartless ruler. There 
are some in every community who, while they do 
not accept these extreme views, nevertheless sym- 
pathize with the pessimistic estimate of life and 
view of death. Some who have perhaps never 
even heard of the name of the system have ac- 
cepted its dreary expectations and dark consola- 
tions. Grief, trial, disappointment, the hardships 
of life have led some to wrong conclusions, that 
there is no good in the world, and even to ques- 
tion God's motives in permitting suffering and 
sorrow to come to the human family. They have 
asked: "Can life be a blessing? Is it not rather 
a curse ? Would it not have been better never to 



166 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

have been born?" "There is vastly more of pain 
than of pleasure," says the pessimist. 

God Not to Blame. — But who is to blame for 
the misery of existence and the catastrophes of 
life? Certainly not our Heavenly Father, whose 
ways are ways of pleasantness and whose paths 
are paths of peace. David says : "Clouds and 
darkness are round about him ; righteousness and 
justice are the foundation of His throne." The 
first of these phrases is a confession of ignorance ; 
the second a profession of faith. There is much 
that we can never explain, but when we can not 
explain we can trust. If we can not fully explain 
such horrible events as have been happening of 
late, let us avoid saying foolish things about 
them. Was it a punishment sent by the Almighty 
God upon the hundreds who perished in Chi- 
cago's Iroquois Theater ten days ago because 
they were in a theater? Was it a punishment 
sent upon those young men, students of Purdue 
University, who lost their lives in that wreck at 
Indianapolis a few weeks ago because they were 
on their way to an innocent game of ball? To 
think so would be not only irrational but unkind. 
Hotels burn as well as theaters. Cyclones strike 
churches as well as saloons. Saints as well as 
sinners perish in railroad wrecks. Our Lord 
made it plain in His teachings that we must never 
interpret special misfortunes as evidence of God's 
displeasure. One whole book of the Bible, the 



PESSIMISM 167 

book of Job, is devoted to the refutation of the 
superstitious idea that calamities are signs of 
God's anger. Neither must we conclude that sin 
and suffering are equal in this life. The innocent 
suffer along with the guilty. Some of the best 
people on earth are among the greatest sufferers. 
Christ, the only absolutely pure and innocent 
One, suffered that humanity might be redeemed. 
Moses deliberately chose to suffer affliction with 
the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleas- 
ures of sin for a season. Paul says : "If we suf- 
fer with Him we shall also reign with Him." 

A Violation of Law Is the Cause of Suffering. 
— But if God is not responsible for the misery 
and horrors of life, who is? Manifestly they are 
the consequences of the violations of law. Suf- 
fering is the result of sin, the penalty falling not 
always on the guilty party. The mystery of suf- 
fering then is the mystery of sin. Had there been 
no sin there would have been no death. Had 
there been no sin there would have been no sor- 
row. You can not fathom the mystery of suf- 
fering unless you can fathom the mystery of sin. 
Remove the selfishness, lawlessness, recklessness, 
negligence and inhumanity of man to man and 
you have cleared up the mystery of suffering. 
Humanity violates God's laws, spiritual laws and 
natural laws, causes catastrophes and makes itself 
miserable, and then talks about the mystery of 
suffering. The statement made by the great un- 



168 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

believer Strauss is certainly true : "Order and 
law, reason and goodness are the soul of the cos- 
mos." But man does violence to this order and 
law and suffers for it. Now see how this princi- 
ple will work. There are certain laws regulating 
individual conduct for the good of the body as 
well as the soul. Those laws are violated and 
disease is contracted. There are laws for the 
good of society. Those laws are violated and 
families and communities suffer for it. It is the 
law of fire to burn. Man's reason tells him to 
keep out of the fire. He gets into the fire by vio- 
lation of law on his part or the part of some one 
else and hence suffering ensues. It is the law of 
an electric wire to convey electricity so as to sub- 
serve the good of mankind. But if the law de- 
signed to regulate and utilize electricity is vio- 
lated, then somebody may get hurt. The same 
principle will apply to the engine on the track 
and to the laws and regulations for public safety 
on trains or boats or in public buildings. 

The spirit of lawlessness, my friends, is the 
cause of much of the suffering to-day in all the 
world. 

But Why Should Accidents and Calamities Be 
Permitted? — But if there is an overruling Prov- 
idence, why should such great calamities as have 
distinguished the year 1903 be permitted? You 
might just as well ask why did God permit sin, 
with all its paralyzing, blighting influence, to en- 



PESSIMISM 169 

ter this world ? One thing we do know : Men 
are not machines, but free moral agents, and as 
such agents we are here dependent upon one an- 
other and dealing with the forces of nature. 
Think of the interdependence and solidarity in 
which we are placed in this mundane sphere. 
Our lives are linked together by a thousand ties 
of mutual obligation and responsibility. Pope, in 
his essay on man, has beautifully said : 

Heaven forming each on other to depend 

A master or a servant or a friend, 

Bids each on other for assistance to call 

Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. 

Are we not continually profiting by the good 
conduct of our fellow-men? Are not tens of 
thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives 
intrusted every day to the faithfulness of locomo- 
tive engineers ? And is not the sacred, responsi- 
ble trust pretty faithfully kept? Think of how 
many times our safety has been faithfully guard- 
ed in public assemblies and on train and boat. 
Our blessings we take as a matter of course. If 
our lives are so interdependent and so related 
that we are continually reaping the benefit of the 
faithful conduct of men, is it so mysterious, after 
all, that we reap also the results of the unfaithful 
conduct of men? Another thought worthy of 
consideration is this : Our marvelously increased 
use of the powerful forces of nature increases the 



170 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

risk of life. A few years ago there were no rail- 
road accidents because there were no railroads, 
no automobile accidents because there were no 
automobiles. Men should cultivate the art of 
carefulness along with their skill in using natural 
agents. 

But Where Does an Overruling Providence 
Come In? — The question doubtless has suggested 
itself to your mind, Where does an overruling 
Providence come in, if there is such a thing? Is 
it not in connection with the adjustments or ap- 
plications that are made of the afflictions or catas- 
trophe, as the case may be? If we are true to 
Him, will not our Father in heaven sanctify our 
afflictions to our own good and the good of oth- 
ers? How often have we been enabled to see 
that great public calamities have been turned to 
good account ? And in the case of the individual 
sufferer there comes in the law of compensation, 
which we, of course, can not always see. Some- 
times we think God is destroying us when He is 
only developing us. Our disappointments may 
be God's appointments. Prof. Moulton says : 
"Suffering is the test of saintship." Job was put 
to a severe test and he came out pure gold. In 
the return to him of his family and his fortune 
there is a remarkable illustration of the law of 
compensation. This law applies to poverty. In 
the hardships of poverty the lessons of industry, 
sobriety, self-reliance and frugality are taught. 



PESSIMISM 171 

Poverty means struggle, and struggle means 
strength. Shakespeare and Walter Scott, John- 
son and Poe and Henry George learned how to 
serve humanity through their own privations. 
This law of compensation is especially seen in 
the case of those who have suffered bodily ail- 
ments. It is simply marvelous how many men 
and women who have achieved great things have 
been tortured with physical distress. Paul had 
his thorn in the flesh. Beethoven and Sir Joshua 
Reynolds were deaf. Milton lost his natural eye- 
sight, but it helped him to see the battle of the 
angels. The great Angelo had a broken nose. 
Pope was so crooked by disease he was called an 
interrogation point. Alfred the Great was af- 
flicted with a disease that did not allow him an 
hour's rest. Helen Hunt Jackson, and Roebling, 
the architect of the Brooklyn bridge, were con- 
stant sufferers. Out of a long list of invalids, 
semi or confirmed, I would mention Homer, Vir- 
gil, Horace, Pascal, Dante, Cowper, Hawthorne, 
Carlyle, Bacon, Livingston and Ruskin. It al- 
most seems that some bodily affliction is neces- 
sary for the development of man's best latent 
forces. As the purest gold comes out of the hot- 
test furnace, the brightest characters, other 
things being equal, come out of suffering. What 
miraculous patience, what heroic trust, what 
heavenly tenderness do we often see as a result 
of suffering? What is true of individuals is true 



172 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

of nations. The most powerful nations in the 
world to-day have come to their strength through 
great conflicts and tribulations. And so it ever 
is. Day out of night, spring out of winter, flow- 
ers out of frost, joy out of sorrow, fruitfulness 
out of pruning, Olivet out of Gethsemane, life 
out of death. There is an evolution of good 
wherever God's love to man finds a response in 
man's love for God. It is written : "All things 
work together for good to them that love God." 
God administers this law of good to all those 
who give to Him truest affection, and as He gave 
to Job twice as much as he had before, so out of 
all life's tribulations and personal sufferings, our 
reward will be doubled if we maintain an unfal- 
tering faith in Him and are persistently obedient 
to His commands. 

Things Are Not Running at Random. — What- 
ever view of the sufferings and calamities of life 
we may take, let us not permit ourselves to con- 
clude that things are running at random in our 
Father's universe. The chariot of His provi- 
dence does not run along uncertain lines nor upon 
broken wheels. The bosom of Divine Providence 
is the crucible in which there are no loose pulleys 
on which idle belts career, but in which things 
work together for the accomplishment of a pur- 
pose. The Rev. J. D. Steel, who has traveled 
much, tells us that "In the cathedral of Pisa is a 
wonderful dome, spacious, symmetrical, com- 



PESSIMISM 173 

posed of the choicest marble. It is a delight to 
stand beneath and gaze upon its beauty. Thus 
I stood," he says, "one sunny April day, when 
suddenly the air became instinct with music. 
The great dome seemed full of harmony. The 
waves of music vibrated to and fro, loudly beat- 
ing against the walls, swelling into full chords, 
like the roll of a grand organ, and then dying 
away into soft, long-drawn, far-receding echoes, 
melting in the distance into silence. It was only 
my guide, who, lingering behind me a moment, 
had softly murmured a triple chord. But be- 
neath that magic roof every sound resolved into 
a symphony. No discord can reach the summit 
of that dome and live. Every noise made in the 
building, the slamming of the seats, the tramping 
of the feet, all the murmur and bustle of the 
crowd, are caught up, softened, harmonized, 
blended and echoed back in music." 

So it seems to me that over the lives of those 
who love and trust God hangs the dome of His 
providence. Standing as we do beneath it, no 
act in the divine administration toward us, no 
affliction, no grief, no loss which our Father 
sends or permits to come to us but will come 
back at last, softened and blended into harmony, 
with the overarching dome of His wisdom, mercy 
and power, until to our corrected sense it shall 
be the sweetest music of heaven. 



OPTIMISM, 
Or, The Bright Side of Life and Death. 

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Philip- 
pians 1 :2i. 

JOSEPH COOK once said : "Man's life con- 
sists of tender teens, teachable twenties, tire- 
less thirties, fiery forties, forcible fifties, serious 
sixties, sacred seventies, aching eighties, pain, 
death, sod, God." In these decades of time there 
is unquestionably much of pain and anguish, 
cloud and shadow. 

Sadness fills a large place in human life, and a 
much larger place in some lives than in others. 
Lord Houghton says: 

Because the few with signal virtue crowned, 

The heights and pinnacles of human mind, 
Sadder and wearier than the rest are found, — 

Wish not thy soul less wise or less refined. 
True, that the clear delights that every day 

Cheer and distract the pilgrim are not theirs ; 
True, that though free from passion's lawless way, 

A loftier being brings severer cares ; 
Yet have they special pleasures — even mirth, — 

By those undreamed of who have only trod 



OPTIMISM 175 

Life's valley smooth ; and if the rolling earth 
To their nice ear have many a painful tone, 
They know man does not live by joy alone, 
But by the presence of the power of God. 

God's Presence Makes a Vast Difference. — If 
life consisted only of suffering and sorrow, we 
might well despair. But God's presence with 
us makes all the difference in the world. With- 
out the presence of our Lord, how dark our lives 
would be in this world, how gloomy our pros- 
pects for the next ! The presence and power of 
Jesus Christ, our Lord, has transfigured earth's 
gloomiest places and poured light into the dark- 
est experiences through which humanity is called 
to pass. His words convert darkness into light, 
cloud into sunshine, fear into faith. To the first 
disciples the storms that had swept over the lake 
had often been things of terror ; but after Christ 
calmed them, every storm seemed holy with His 
presence. The desert often seemed a strange, 
unfriendly region ; but after He fed the multitude 
in the desert it was sacred with the memory of 
His pity. Mount Tabor had long looked stern ; 
but the memory of Christ's unveiled glory trans- 
formed it into a temple. And so it ever is. Life 
seems so different since Christ came and ac- 
quainted Himself with our sorrows and griefs. 
Even death does not seem to be what it did be- 
fore Christ died, nor is the grave a thing to be 
dreaded. It is not the way down to darkness, 
but the way out and up to the palace of our King. 



176 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

Life is evermore the Lord of death. And that 
life which conquers all things is in Christ. The 
Christian, then, who has linked himself to God by 
faith through Christ, has no reason to be a pessi- 
mist. Above all others, he should take an opti- 
mistic view of life. Faith in God's presence and 
power has a tendency to make one bright, and 
cheerful, and hopeful. Faith, when it sees sin 
abounding, says : "Grace does much more 
abound." Faith looks beneath the surface and 
beyond the present. It fixes its gaze on the 
bright side of life. It says : God is. Hence the 
steps of humanity are upward, not downward, 
onward, not backward. 

It does seem, even to a Christian sometimes, as 
if humanity were going to the bad. But faith 
helps one to consider the fact that there never 
were so many sounding-boards as to-day, never 
so many telegraphs to flash, never so many tele- 
phones to whisper, never so many printing press- 
es to publish the sad story of sin and shame. 
And it is the dark side of human history that is 
more broadly published and that stands more 
often before public gaze. Sin is palpable, red- 
handed, loud-mouthed. It sounds a trumpet be- 
fore it, while virtue goes quietly on its heaven- 
appointed mission. You can hear the loud thun- 
der peals and the terrific tread of the cyclone, but 
not the gentle footfalls of the sun beams nor the 
quiet distillations of the dewy night. As the ele- 



OPTIMISM 177 

ments of nature that are of the greatest impor- 
tance do their work in a quiet way, covering the 
earth in due season with a, carpet of green, filling 
it with delicious fruits and beautiful flowers, 
causing the same water that whitens in the lily 
to blush in the rose, so the moral and spiritual 
forces in the kingdom of Christ perform their 
mission in a gentle way. They do not always 
attract the attention of the world, but neverthe-* 
less they are telling for the uplifting and on- 
going of the human family. There are to-day 
many more sisters of charity in the world than 
those who bear the name or wear the apparel, the 
echoes of whose footfalls are not heard as they 
come and go on errands of merciful ministration. 
Faith in God and humanity keeps one from be- 
coming cynical and dyspeptic. It enables him to 
see the good in humanity and the ultimate tri- 
umphs of the Christian religion. 

The Optimist Gets the Most Out of This Life. 
— To say nothing of the hereafter, the optimist, 
the hopeful and cheerful person, gets the best and 
the most out of this present life. One of the late 
deans of our country was very fond of relating 
the following incident : "Two frogs, an optimist 
and a pessimist frog, had a conference one morn- 
ing and decided to take a stroll in the country. 
In their peregrinations they came to a dairy. 
They found a jar of cream, into which they both 
fell. The pessimist frog struggled and swam, 



178 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

and swam and struggled, but kept looking on the 
dark side of the situation, and finally gave up the 
ghost. The optimist frog struggled and swam, 
and swam and struggled, but kept up his cour- 
age; he was hopeful; he saw the bright side of 
the situation, while at the same time recognizing 
the fact that a struggle was on. And he kept up 
such an everlasting kicking that the cream was 
churned into butter and he sat upon it, and that 
was his salvation." It is a true illustration of 
life. We all have our trials, our conflicts, our 
special burdens to bear. And sometimes it may 
seem that everything is against us. But if we are 
brave-hearted and true, it will all come out right. 
There is a bright side to life. If we do not see 
it in our sorrows, we will see it afterwards. 

One of our Christian poets, after having lost 
his wife and children, after he lost his property 
and health, and the way seemed dark, meditated 
upon what he had passed through, and then wrote 
these lines : 

And afterward I saw in a robe of light 

That weaver in the sky ; 
The angel's wings were not more bright, 

The stars grew pale it nigh. 
And wherever a tear had fallen down 

Sprang out a diamond rare, 
And jewels befitting a monarch's crown 

Were the footprints left by care. 



OPTIMISM 179 

And wherever had swept the tear of a sigh 

Was left a rich perfume, 
And with light from the fountain of bliss in the sky, 

Shone the labor of sorrow and gloom. 

All comes well to those who trust in and wait 
upon the Lord. 

The Bright Side of Death. — Not only is there 
a bright side to this life, but there is a bright 
side to death. Paul says : "For to me to live is 
Christ, and to die is gain." That is to say, living 
I shall live Christ, I shall think as He thought, 
do as He did. That makes life bright and hope- 
ful here. Then, when death comes, I shall be the 
gainer. It is not hard for a Christian to die. It 
is a thousand times harder to live. As one has 
said : "To die is to be a man. To live is only to 
try to be one. To live is to see God through a 
glass darkly. To die is to see Him face to face. 
To live is to be in the ore ; to die is to be smelted 
and come out pure gold. To live is to be in Jan- 
uary and December ; to die is to bask in the eter- 
nal sunlight, close by the fountain of life." 

Death to a Christian is a process as simple as 
the swinging of a door on its hinges to let one in 
from the cold winter blasts to the enjoyment of 
the warm and beautiful parlor, where all are 
bright, and cheerful, and comfortable. John 
says : "Beloved, now are we the children of God, 
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but 



180 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

we know that when He shall appear we shall be 
like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is." 

We can not imagine the future, much less com- 
prehend it. Here, for instance, are two eggs, the 
Qgg of a crocodile and the egg of an eagle. The 
most acute science can not discern any difference 
between the germs of those eggs, a difference 
that indicates that those germs will develop into 
beings, the one of which will wallow in the mud 
and the other will soar aloft in the air. The fu- 
ture of those beings is locked up in the germs. 
It has not yet appeared what they shall be. When 
Lyman Beecher was born, some good women, as 
they looked upon the little two-and-a-half pound- 
er, said: "What a pity it is that the child did 
not die." It had not yet appeared what was 
locked up in that little form. John says, "It hath 
not yet appeared what we, as children of God, 
shall be." Enough, however, is said to assure 
us that there is an eternally bright side to death. 

Not until the morning of the third day did it 
dawn upon the disciples what their Lord was 
and was to do. On the day of His crucifixion 
they stood, dazed, bewildered, disappointed. 
They saw their Master die before His hand had 
touched His crown. But wait and see what God 
will do. The lines of Lowell are certainly true of 
Him: 



OPTIMISM 181 

Truth forever on the scaffold, 
Wrong forever on the throne, 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, 
And behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God within the shadow, 
Keeping watch above His own. 

They saw the bright side of death after his res- 
urrection, and that He was mightier in death 
than ever He had been in life. And so it is with 
good men and true. John the Baptist, with his 
head in a charger, "the ghastly trophy of mur- 
derous hate/' was mightier than when he wore 
it on his shoulders. Paul, beheaded at Rome, has 
a more commanding pulpit than he had at Mars 
Hill. Augustine is more august to-day than 
when he moved among men. Lincoln has a 
wider fame and Grant a grander pedestal than 
they had during life. Webster, being dead, still 
lives in his immortal words : "Let us have no 
such motto as liberty first and union afterwards ; 
but liberty and union, now and forever, one and 
inseparable." Men die but principles live. 
Luther is dead, but the reformation goes on. 
Knox and Henderson are dead, but Scotland still 
retains a Sabbath and an open Bible. Bunyan is 
dead, but his bright spirit still walks the earth in 
Pilgrim's Progress. Baxter is dead, but souls 
are still quickened by the Saints' Rest and the 
Call to the Unconverted. Cowper is dead, but 
the golden apples are still as fresh as when newly 



182 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

gathered in the silver basket of the Olney hymns. 
Out of death comes life, out of defeat comes vic- 
tory. Christ must be crucified in order to be 
crowned. We, too, must be conquered by Cal- 
vary in order to conquer through Calvary and 
gain the victory over the world and over the last 
enemy, which is death. 

The Last Enemy Conquered. — It is the ambi- 
tion of the great ones of earth to do something 
that will distinguish them in history ; and some 
things they can do and have done. Peter the 
Great dug those immense ditches in Russia. 
William, Prince of Orange, stood on the edge of 
old Holland and said : "Let us level the dykes. 
Give Holland back to the ocean, that she may be 
free." Cromwell humiliated all Spain and the 
Duke of Savoy. The Edwards, the Henrys and 
others have done some things to distinguish 
themselves in history. But at last they have 
stood like others before the king of terrors, dazed, 
bewildered and then silent. But Christ met this 
king of terrors in his own citadel. For thirty- 
six hours the king of terrors was victor. But at 
last his scepter was broken, his empire vacated, 
his crown plucked from his brow. This victory 
over the last enemy has flooded the world with 
brightness, has forever distinguished our Lord 
as the Savior of humanity, and has given us rea- 
son to take the most hopeful view of life and 
death. 



OPTIMISM 183 

If we sing no funeral songs when we prepare 
our flower beds and sow the seed in spring-time, 
because we know that out of the defeat and death 
of the sown seed life and beauty will come forth, 
why should we sorrow at the graves of our loved 
ones ? We know there is a bright side to death ; 
that there is a more glorious life beyond. A little 
Christian boy, scorched with fever and near 
death's door, said : "Papa, hold me up." The 
father took him in his arms and held him up. 
"Higher, papa, higher;" he held him higner. 
"Higher yet, papa, higher." Then the father 
held him in his hands just as high as he could 
reach. "Higher yet," said the boy. And then 
his spirit took its flight, and the father lowered 
the lifeless body to the couch. That Christian 
boy saw the bright side of death on his way to 
heaven. 

One who lights his candle at the Cross of 
Christ, who worships at His pierced feet, who 
gets His conception of life, will not only have 
light on his path while here, whether in joy or 
sorrow, pleasure or pain, prosperity or adver- 
sity, but will see light on the distant shores of 
eternity. When passing through the shades of 
life or death, he will be able to say: "Yea, 
though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with 
me." Our Lord, who has never failed nor been 
discouraged, and who will persevere until "the 



1 84 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

isles wait for His law," has assured us that He 
will never leave us nor forsake us. In His pres- 
ence and power, life, with its magnificent endow- 
ments and splendid possibilities and rich provi- 
sions of grace, is grand and glorious. Life itself, 
linked to Christ, is heaven's best gift to man and 
man's largest opportunity. If this sacred trust 
is wisely used in time, it will be abundantly 
crowned in eternity. 



UNIVERSALISM, 
Or, A Dangerous Presumption. 

And we know that the judgment of God is according 
to truth. To them that by patience in well-doing, seek 
for glory and honor and incorruption, — eternal life; 
but unto them that are factious, and obey not the truth, 
but obey unrighteousness, — shall be wrath and indigna- 
tion, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man 
that worketh evil. Romans 2 :2, 7, 8 and 9, R. V. 

He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness 
still; and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still; 
and he that is righteous let him do righteousness still ; 
and he that is holy let him be made holy still. Reve- 
lation 22:11, R. V. 

GOD is infinite love. He sends no one to hell. 
He delights not in the death of any. He 
"willeth that all men should be saved, and come 
to the knowledge of the truth," I Tim. 2 4. "Say 
unto them, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have 
no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that 
the wicked turn from his way and live ; turn ye, 
turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye 
die, O house of Israel?" Ezekiel 33:11. "Let 
the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous 
man his thoughts ; and let him return unto the 
Lord, and He will have mercy upon him ; and to 



1 86 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

our God, for He will abundantly pardon," Isaiah 
55 7. Christ, who is the perfect embodiment of 
mercy, the repository of grace, the expression of 
the Father's will, says : "Come unto me, all ye 
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of 
me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye 
shall find rest unto your souls," Matthew 1 1 128- 
30. From the beginning to the end of the Bible 
the inspired writers ring the changes on the 
goodness and mercy of God, who is willing and 
able to save unto the uttermost. Man is a free 
moral agent. He determines his own destiny. 
He can choose or refuse eternal life. Even Paul 
said : "I was not disobedient to the heavenly 
vision ;" an intimation, this, that he might have 
resisted. If any intelligent, responsible human 
being, either from Christian or heathen lands, 
wakes up in eternity and finds himself in hell, it 
will not be God's fault. I can not believe that 
any one goes to hell by an arbitrary act of God, 
any more than I can believe that He forces men 
into the kingdom of Christ. There is a real sense 
in which men make their own hell and their own 
heaven. 

Heaven and Hell Are States and Conditions of 
Being. — Many there are who have erroneous con- 
ceptions of heaven and hell. They seem to think 
that heaven is simply a place where one escapes 
the punishments and torments of hell. But they 



UNIVERSALISM 187 

are both states and conditions of being. Heaven 
is a state or condition of holiness. Hell is a state 
or condition of unholiness ; heaven of cleanness, 
hell of uncleanness ; heaven of righteousness, hell 
of unrighteousness ; heaven of love, hell of hate. 
John, the beloved of Christ, writes these words 
concerning heaven, the home of the holy : 
''There shall in no wise enter into it anything that 
defileth, nor worketh abomination, nor maketh a 
lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's 
book of life." The writer of the letter to the He- 
brews informs us that "the general assembly and 
church of the first-born, which are written in 
heaven," is composed of "the spirits of just men 
made perfect." The Apostle Peter speaks of "an 
inheritance incorruptible and undefiled." Hell is 
described in the Scriptures as a state or condition, 
just the opposite of heaven, — the abode of Satan 
and his angels. Now, think for a moment of put- 
ting wicked mortals in the next world on a par 
and in the same place with Mary, the mother of 
our Lord ; Herod playing with innocent children ; 
Guiteau and Garfield walking arm in arm ; Cath- 
erine de Medici and Miss Willard singing the 
same songs ; dissolute Byron, drunken Payne, 
profligate Henry the Eighth, that devil incarnate, 
the red-handed Xero — all in heaven with John 
and Paul, the apostles, Moody the evangelist, 
Bliss the sweet singer, Carey the missionary, and 
Spurgeon, the mighty man of God. Carnal hu- 



188 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

man nature must be changed ; the natural human 
heart, which is "deceitful above all things and 
desperately wicked," must be cleansed before one 
can pass into heaven, the home of absolute pur- 
ity. Christ said, even to a moral man : "Except 
a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom 
of God." Even if a man with an unclean heart 
should be admitted to the society of the redeemed 
and purified in heaven, he would not feel at 
home ; he would be ill at ease, and as certainly as 
there is a law of gravitation he would go to his 
own place, which he made for himself while here 
on earth. 

All Mankind Are on Probation in This World 
for Their Moral Character and Eternal Destiny. 
— It has been said : "Every man's mind is the 
book in which is recorded all the thoughts, words 
and deeds of his whole life." These things de- 
termine the quality of his soul and his future ex- 
istence. The nature of one's ruling love writes 
the sentence of life or death, salvation or con- 
demnation. This ruling passion of the soul is 
being formed while here. This probation, this 
test of character, is not limited to those who live 
in Christian lands and have known of the per- 
sonal Christ. For four thousand years the world 
did not know him as the Savior of humanity. 
And yet, as Dr. Robinson has expressed it: 
"The eternal Word whispered in the souls of men 
before it spoke articulately aloud in the incarna- 



UNIVERSALISM 189 

tion. It was a divine thought before it became 
a divine expression." Christ, in one way or an- 
other, has always been in the world. He was the 
inspiration of Abraham and the companion of 
Moses. He was Shilo to Jacob on his deathbed. 
He was Job's daysman, Isaiah's Messiah and 
Malachi's covenant angel. The apostle says of 
Israel : "For they drank of that Spiritual Rock 
that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." 
Thousands upon thousands of souls were doubt- 
less saved through Christ under the old dispen- 
sation. Some there were who "died in the faith, 
not having received the promises, but having 
seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, 
and embraced them, and confessed that they were 
pilgrims and strangers on the earth." In other 
words, they embraced the light that they had and 
obeyed God. Speaking of Christ, Paul says : 
"Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation 
through faith in His blood, to declare His right- 
eousness for the remission of sins that are past, 
through the forbearance of God." Romans 3 125. 
Are the heathen nations on trial, too? They 
certainly are. God is neither a limited nor an ex- 
hausted Deity. He has ways of giving to every 
•intelligent, responsible human being a fair trial 
for the formation of his character and the deter- 
mining of his destiny that we know not of. In 
our limited knowledge we are incompetent judges 
of what constitutes a fair chance for eternal life. 



190 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

The Scriptures are not silent, however, as touch- 
ing this point. It is written : "For the invisible 
things of Him since the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being perceived through the things 
that are made, even His everlasting power and 
divinity ; that they may be without excuse." Ro- 
mans i :20. Again it is written : "For when 
Gentiles, which have no law, do by nature the 
things of the law, these, having no law, are a law 
unto themselves, in that they show the work of 
the law written in their hearts, their conscience 
bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts, 
one with another, accusing or else excusing 
them." Romans 2:14-15. Does not this passage 
teach us that heathen nations are on trial under 
the light of nature and conscience ? And that, if 
they live up to the light they have, they will be 
accepted of God ? But how many of them do live 
up to the light they have from nature and con- 
science? That some do, we have evidence in the 
New Testament. "Then Peter opened his mouth 
and said : Of a truth, I perceive that God is no 
respecter of persons ; but in every nation he that 
feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is ac- 
cepted with Him." Acts 10:34-35. 

The Broader Conception of Salvation. — Then 
some one who wants to shirk responsibility says : 
Why should we send the Gospel to the heathen? 
Let me ask, in turn, Why should God have sent 
His Son, Jesus Christ, to us? Was He under 



UNIVERSALISM 191 

any obligation thus to manifest His love for us 
and bestow upon us His grace? The light that 
Christians have through Christ is supplemental 
to the light of nature and of conscience. It is 
wholly of grace. And if men come under con- 
demnation for not living up to the light of nature 
and of conscience, how much greater will be the 
condemnation of those who, knowing the will of 
God by the revelation of Christ, do it not ? His- 
tory is proof of the fact that human nature sorely 
needed this manifestation of grace through our 
Lord. "For what the law could not do, in that 
it was weak through the flesh, God sending His 
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for 
sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the right- 
eousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who 
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 
Romans 8 13-4. Strange, is it not, that the hu- 
man heart is so sinful that it requires the Cross 
of Calvary to make it penitent? The riches of 
God's grace, His goodness and mercy are to the 
end that we may be led to repentance and to eter- 
nal life. Now, this additional light has come to 
us, and through us it is to be given to the heathen. 
No matter what our Lord's judgments may be 
concerning the heathen, it is our business to obey 
marching orders, "Go ye, therefore, and teach all 
nations." Christ knew His business when He 
gave that command. Even devout Cornelius, 
who was a worshiper of God, needed to be taught 



192 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

the way more perfectly. In a two-fold sense, 
then, Christians are on trial. We are under obli- 
gation to give the Gospel of Christ to the heathen. 
Let us not ask the question, Are the heathen liv- 
ing up to the light they have ? but, Are we living 
up to the light that we have? Furthermore, let 
us get the broader conception of salvation. Sal- 
vation means not simply saved from the conse- 
quences of sin, but from sin, out of sin itself. It 
means saved from a lower to the higher life. It 
means salvation now, in this world, unto the best 
there is for us while here. We all know that the 
Christian religion is not only a superior religion, 
but that it is the religion that all the world needs 
and should have in solving the problems of this 
probationary life. All mankind are on trial for 
the determining of character and destiny, and 
none more so than those whose privilege it is to 
live in Christian lands. 

Death Works No Change in Character. — We 
have said that character is formed in this proba- 
tionary state. Death will work no change in 
character. Death has to do only with the physi- 
cal life. Bodies, not spirits, die. Change of place 
does not change character or conscience. A bad 
man in the United States does not become a good 
man simply by going to Canada. If men love 
sin in this world, they will love sin in the world 
to come. If they love God in time they will love 
Him in eternity. If they hate God in time, they 



UXIYERSALISM 193 

will hate Him in eternity. If they rebel against 
God in time, they will rebel against Him in eter- 
nity. This is plainly taught by our text : "He 
that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness 
still ; and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy 
still." If a man dies in unrighteousness and un- 
holiness, he will wake up in eternity in the same 
condition, and go on sinning, only becoming more 
sinful and rebellious. Punishment then, of what- 
ever nature it may be, will be inflicted not sim- 
ply because of the sins of this life, but because of 
continuous sinning. It is at this point that our 
Universalist friends make a grave mistake. They 
frequently speak of God as being too merciful 
and kind to punish a human being eternally for 
the sins committed in this short space of time. 
God does not send men into a state or condition 
of punishment at all. Men send themselves into 
that state or condition, and not only so, continue 
in sin, and hence continue to suffer the retribu- 
tion of sin. "The wages of sin is death." And 
continuous sin means continuous death. 

Some Passages of Scripture that Universalists 
Use in Support of Their Position. — Let us look 
for a moment at some passages of Scripture used 
by those who believe that all mankind will be 
saved, if not in time, then in eternity. In Mat- 
thew 12:32 it is written: "Whosoever shall 
speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be for- 
given him, neither in this world, nor in that 



i 



194 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

which is to come." It is claimed that this pas- 
sage teaches by way of implication that other 
sins than those against the Holy Spirit may be 
forgiven in the next world. But a thoughtful, 
sober look at this text will convince one, I think, 
that the writer uses a rhetorical method only to 
strengthen the first negative ; to emphasize the 
impossibility of pardon for blasphemy against 
the Holy Spirit. In the parallel passage in Mark 
3 :2g we read simply : "Whosoever shall blas- 
pheme against the Holy Spirit hath never for- 
giveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin." The 
thought seems to be that there is a sin against the 
Holy Spirit for which there is no forgiveness in 
this life, though the one who commits it may live 
for years afterwards. 

Another passage frequently used is this : "For 
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be 
made alive." I Cor. 15 :22. This passage Paul 
uses in connection with the resurrection of the 
dead. All rise from the dead. But even if ap- 
plied in a spiritual sense, it fails to support their 
claim. In being, is the essential thing. We all 
by nature were potentially in Adam. But we 
are not by nature in Christ. We come into 
Christ, into the Christ-life, by repentance, faith 
and obedience. All who are in Christ by repent- 
ance, faith and obedience shall be made alive. 
Perhaps the strongest passage used by our Uni- 
versalist friends in support of a second probation 



UNIVERSALISM 195 

is this : " Because Christ also suffered for sins 
once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He 
might bring us to God, being put to death in the 
flesh, but quickened in the Spirit ; in which He 
also went and preached unto the spirits in prison, 
which aforetime were disobedient, when the long 
suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, 
while the ark was a preparing," I Peter 3:18-20. 
It is claimed that Christ, during the time between 
the crucifixion and resurrection, a period of 
about thirty-six hours, went in person to the 
abode of lost spirits who had refused to hear 
Noah, and offered to them the terms of the Gos- 
pel for acceptance. Is such a position tenable? 
The reasoning from this passage in favor of a 
probation after death is utterly fallacious. Those 
whose spirits were in prison — their final place of 
abode — at the time Peter wrote this letter, were 
preached to in the days of Noah, while they were 
yet living. The passage simply says that Christ 
was quickened by the Spirit, in which Tie also 
went. Went when? Centuries before, and 
preached unto the antediluvians. If Christ did 
go in person and preach to these lost spirits, there 
is not a word written anywhere that His preach- 
ing had any saving effect upon them. On the 
day of His crucifixion Christ said to the penitent 
thief: 'Today shalt thou be with me in para- 
dise." That promise was not very comforting if 



196 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

Christ's mission on that day was to the realm 
of lost spirits. 

Some Passages that Must Be Explained Away 
if All Mankind Are To Be Saved. — Let us look 
at a few passages on the other side of this sol- 
emn question that must be explained away if all 
men are to be saved. "Not every one that saith 
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king- 
dom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my 
Father who is in heaven. Many will say unto 
me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophe- 
sied in Thy name? And in Thy name have cast 
out devils? And in Thy name done many won- 
derful works? And then will I profess unto 
them, I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that 
work iniquity." Matthew 7:21-23. 

"Then shall He say also unto them on the left 
hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlast- 
ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." 
Matthew 25 41. 

"For we must all be made manifest before the 
judgment seat of Christ, that each one may re- 
ceive the things done in the body according to 
what he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 
II Cor. 5 :io. 

"It is appointed unto men once to die, but after 
this the judgment." Heb. 9:27. 

"For if we sin wilfully after that we have re- 
ceived the knowledge of the truth, there remain- 
ed! no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fear- 



UNIVERSALISM 197 

ful looking for of judgment and fiery indigna- 
tion which shall devour the adversaries. He that 
despised Moses' law died without mercy under 
two or three witnesses ; of how much sorer pun- 
ishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy 
who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, 
and hath counted the blood of the covenant an 
unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the 
Spirit of Grace?" Heb. 10:26-29. 

"And to you who are troubled, rest with us, 
when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from 
heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, 
taking vengeance on them that know not God, 
and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; who shall be punished with everlasting 
destruction from the presence of the Lord, and 
from the glory of His power." II Thess. 1 17-9. 
Also the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. 

A Dangerous Presumption. — In view of what 
is written in God's Word, is it not dangerous to 
presume on His goodness and mercy and try to 
make ourselves believe that, after all, He will 
save all mankind? That, if all are not saved in 
time, they will have another opportunity in eter- 
nity, and will repent and be saved? We can not 
presume to say what God would do for a lost 
spirit in eternity if he repented of sin. But is it 
likely that one would repent? Is it not danger- 
ous in the extreme to hover around some vague 
passages of Scripture that seem to suggest a pos- 



198 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

sibility of another chance, when we are so earn- 
estly exhorted to make our calling and election 
sure? "We insure our houses, not because it is 
probable they will burn, but because it is possible 
they may be consumed by fire." If there is some 
question about the train leaving the station at half 
past seven or eight, and we want to make a trip 
to some other city, we make sure to be at the 
station at 7 :3c Why risk so much on eternal 
interests? There is a magnificent chance for us 
all now to be saved, and if we despise that chance, 
it seems to me, we have no right to expect an- 
other. 



INDIFFERENTISM, 

Or, Criminal Neglect. 

How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? 
Hebrews 2 -.3. 

INDIFFERENTISM is probably the most uni- 
versal of all the isms thus far considered. 
And, if not the worst, it is one of the worst. Bet- 
ter be a follower of Zoroaster and worship the 
sun than to be stoically indifferent. The athe- 
ist declares out and out there is no God, no 
hereafter, no reality in religion. We can under- 
stand the man who says, "I have examined all 
the evidence and have come to the conclusion 
that the Bible is a fable, that Christianity is noth- 
ing but a romance, that a judgment-day is the 
vision of a baseless dream." We know where to 
find such a man. I pity him from the depths of 
my soul. I feel sorry for such a man. But I 
wonder if it is not more of an insult to God, to be 
absolutely indifferent to all religious considera- 
tions, than for one honestly to declare his unbe- 
lief ! It was a remarkable law of Solon, that any 
person, who, in the commotions of the republic, 
remained neutral, or an indifferent spectator of 
the contending parties, should be condemned to 



200 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

perpetual banishment. Paul says : "Prove all 
things ; hold fast that which is good." But the 
indifferent person proves nothing and holds fast 
to nothing. John says : "Test the spirits whether 
they are of God." But the indifferent person 
seems not to care whether there are any spirits, 
or to know whether there is a God and a blessed 
immortality. It seems almost impossible that a 
rational person should be indifferent to the means 
of obtaining knowledge on religious questions 
and indifferent to endless happiness. And yet 
there are many in every community who do not 
know where they stand religiously, and worse 
than this, they do not care to know. 

A Living Question. — Now I want to ask this 
congregation a question. It is a question that has 
been on my mind for years. It is a question that 
has given me much concern. It is a question that 
I have never been able to answer ; nor have I 
found any man yet who is able to answer it. I 
do not believe that you can answer it. And yet I 
can not refrain from asking it. The question is 
this : "How shall we escape, if we neglect so 
great salvation?" How can we hope to escape 
condemnation and the consequences of sin, if we 
are, and continue to be, indifferent to the provi- 
sions made for our escape? It is not an uncom- 
mon thing to hear men talking about living ques- 
tions, the questions of the day. But here is one 
of the most seriously important questions that 



INDIFFEREXTISM 201 

can engage the thought of man ; a question as old 
as the Christian era, which is still a living ques- 
tion and shall be to the end of time. It is a ques- 
tion that has startled rulers on their thrones ; that 
has stirred the slumbering conscience of millions 
upon millions who have risen out of death in sin, 
into a real and blessed life of death to sin. How 
can any intelligent being remain indifferent to 
this greatest of all questions ; the question of es- 
cape from sin and its consequences ? It is written : 
"If the Word spoken through angels proved 
steadfast, and every transgression and disobedi- 
ence received a just recompense of reward; how 
shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation ? 
which having at the first been spoken through the 
Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard ; 
God also bearing witness with them, both by 
signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and 
by gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own 
will." Again it is written : "He that despised 
Moses' law died without mercy under two or 
three witnesses ; of how much sorer punishment 
suppose ye shall he be thought worthy, who hath 
trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath 
counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he 
was sanctified, an unholy thing and hath done 
despite unto the spirit of grace?'' It is a serious 
question, my friends, that we are dealing with to- 
night, and that we must deal with in this life. 
A Great Salvation. — And what makes this 



202 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

question a serious one is the fact that a great sal- 
vation from sin has been wrought out for us, not 
through the blood of animals, as under the old 
covenant, but through the blood of Christ. It is 
a great salvation for many reasons. It is great 
because of the surpassing love that conceived it ; 
great because of the wisdom that superintended 
it ; great because of the condescending grace that 
carried it into execution; great because of its 
length and breadth, its height and depth, reach- 
ing to the lowest depths of depravity and up to 
the loftiest heights of heaven. We might spend 
all our time tonight on this one point. Suffice it 
to say, that of all God's works, a full and free 
redemption through His Son, Jesus Christ, is the 
greatest. That Cross on Calvary, — magnet of the 
moral universe, altar of the world's atonement, — 
cost our Father more than all creation besides. 
As Doctor Guthrie has beautifully said : "With 
the earth its emerald floor, its roof the sapphire 
firmament, the sun and stars its pendant lamps, 
its incense a thousand fragrant odors, its music 
of many sounds and instruments, the song of 
groves, the murmur of the streams, the voice of 
winged winds, the pealing thunder and the ever- 
lasting roar of ocean — nature's is a glorious tem- 
ple. Yet that is a nobler temple, which, with 
blood-redeemed saints for its living stones, and 
God and the Lamb for its uncreated lights, stands 
aloft on the Rock of Ages — the admiration of 



INDIFFERENTISM 203 

angels and the glory of the universe." Is it any 
ordinary thing to treat the blood of the covenant 
with indifference ? 

Criminal Neglect. — Is it not, in fact, criminal 
to be indifferent to, or to neglect such a salvation 
as is prepared for us in Christ, on the condition 
of repentance and faith and obedience? The 
emphasis in our text is placed on the word neg- 
lect. How many accidents, how many great and 
horrible calamities that have come in the range 
of our knowledge, have resulted from neglect on 
the part of some one? During the terrible fire 
in the Ring Theater at Vienna, a large crowd, 
striving to reach one of the exits saw a sideway 
marked, "Emergency door, in case of fire." This 
was just what they needed. They turned aside 
from the main passages, and rushed to use this 
special way. But the bolts could not be drawn, 
the locks could not be turned, and the hinges 
were choked with rust; because the door had 
never been used, it could not now be suddenly 
put into requisition when urgently needed. A 
heap of dead soon lay before that gate. But we 
need not go so far in space or time for an illus- 
tration of criminal neglect. That awful catas- 
trophe in the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, a few 
weeks ago, is still fresh in our memories. Some 
loved ones to this people, some who were at one 
time connected with our Sunday school, some 
who were side bv side with some of vou in busi- 



204 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

ness a short time ago, lost their lives in that 
awful fire. If the testimony already taken is to be 
relied upon, it was the result of gross neglect. 
And what is extremely exasperating to those who 
lost loved ones in that fire, is that some of the 
responsible parties on the witness-stand seem to 
be cruelly indifferent to many of the questions 
put to them. Neglect, neglect, neglect: Oh, how 
many have been the disasters of neglect ! How 
deep the sorrow ! How far-reaching the conse- 
quences ! Do you remember the loss of the vessel 
called the Central America? She was in a bad 
state, had sprung a leak and was going down. 
She hoisted a signal of distress. Another ship 
came close to her, the captain of which asked 
through the trumpet, "What is the matter?" 
"We are in bad repair and are going down; lie 
by till morning," was the answer. But the cap- 
tain of the rescue ship said, "Let me take your 
passengers on board now." "Lie by till morn- 
ing," was the answer that came back ; "it will 
soon be day and we can get along till then." 
Once again the captain of the rescue vessel cried, 
"You had better let me take your passengers on 
board now." "Lie by till morning," sounded 
through the trumpet, "our vessel is leaking only 
slightly and we do not wish to disturb our sleep- 
ing passengers until daylight." In one hour and 
thirty minutes the lights went out, no sound was 
heard, the vessel had gone down with her passen- 



INDIFFERENTISM 205 

gers to the bottom of the ocean. How many to- 
day are answering the call of the Spirit, "Lie by 
till morning? Wait until I am ready. Do not 
disturb me in my sin." But the warning voice 
is heard, saying "Seek ye the Lord while he may 
be found, call upon him while he is near. Today 
ii you hear his voice harden not your heart." One 
does not need to commit great crimes in order to 
lose his soul. All he needs to do is, simply neg- 
lect to do what he should do. A man who is in 
business does not need to commit forgery or 
robbery in order to ruin himself in the business 
world; he has only to neglect his business and 
ruin will come. There is no need that a man in 
a skiff amid Niagara's rapids should row toward 
the cataract. Resting on his oars is quite enough. 
Men today, in this Christian land, are under con- 
demnation, not simply because they have sinned 
and are sinning, but because of their failure to 
accept Christ. Indifferentism, or neglect, will 
probably be the cause of the loss of more lives 
than any other one thing. 

Taking Risks in Sin. — Men are constantly tak- 
ing risks in sin. We are told that the great clock 
of St. Paul's at the noon hour can not be heard 
in the roar and rush of business, except by those 
who are close by it. But when the work of the 
day is over, and silence reigns in London, then 
it may be heard for miles around. That is just 
like the conscience of the unrepentant man. Ab- 



206 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

sorbed in the things of this life, he hears not the 
warnings of conscience, as well as of the Word. 
But when the rush of life is over and he stands 
in the silence of the judgment-day, then he will 
hear. We read in ancient history that "Archias, 
a Grecian chief magistrate, was so unpopular, 
that his people conspired to take his life. The 
day arrived for the execution of the conspiracy. 
Archias was crazed with wine, when a friend 
came from Athens and hastened to put in his 
hands what afterward proved to be circumstan- 
tial evidence of the whole conspiracy. The mes- 
senger said to him, 'The person who writes you 
these letters urges you to read them immediately ; 
they contain serious information.' Archias re- 
plied, 'Serious affairs tomorrow,' and continued 
his revel. That night in the midst of his mirth, 
the conspirators rushed into his palace, and mur- 
dered him and his associates." In spiritual af- 
fairs, how many times has this mistake been re- 
peated. Faith in tomorrow instead of faith in 
Christ is Satan's nurse for man's perdition. Busi- 
ness today, pleasure today, frivolity today, serious 
things tomorrow. A young woman in the house 
of God, one Sunday night, after listening to the 
faithful preaching of the gospel, and an earnest 
appeal to the unconverted to give their hearts to 
God for cleansing and service, laughed at what 
the minister said and wrote a few words on the 
fly leaf of her hymnal and closed it. In six 



INDIFFERENTISM 207 

months thereafter she was seriously ill. Every- 
thing was done that could be done to save her 
life. A council of physicians was called and it 
was decided that she could not recover. She 
said : "Send for the minister." When he came to 
her bedside she apologized for her conduct in 
church that night and said, "I wrote four little 
words in my hymnal on account of which I feel I 
have lost my life." She said : "Don't talk to me 
now. It is too late. My only request is that you 
do not open my hymnal until I shall have passed 
away." Soon the spirit took its flight. With 
trembling hand and aching heart the minister 
opened the hymnal and read what she had writ- 
ten. And these were the words : "I'll run the 
risk." Oh, when will sinners come to realize the 
folly of taking risks in sin ? 

The Critical Moment. — There is, I believe, a 
critical moment in each one's life. That moment 
with some of you may be now. 

Once to every man and nation 
Comes the moment to decide, 

In the strife of truth with falsehood, 
For the good or evil side. 

At the critical moment of that night, in the year 
1 741, when Count Lessoch went to conduct the 
Princess Elizabeth of Russia to the palace to as- 
sert her right to the vacant throne, he found her 
irresolute, and refusing to go ; upon which he 



208 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

drew forth two pictures which he had caused to 
be prepared for the purpose and placed them be- 
fore her. In the one she was herself under the 
torture and the count on a scaffold ; in the other 
she beheld herself ascending the throne amid the 
applause of her people. The count said : "It is a 
critical moment. It is for you to decide your 
destiny. Make choice as to what it shall be." 
She chose the throne, and on the morrow she was 
ruler of all the Russians. The Holy Spirit, the 
Divine Artist, has drawn for us in the Word of 
God, two pictures, two characters, two great 
events. It is for us to choose whether we will 
serve with Christ and ultimately reign with Him, 
or treat this momentous matter with indiffer- 
ence and go down in despair, deprived of untold 
joys and ineffable bliss. 

A Lost Opportunity. — It is the opportunity of 
our lives to make this choice, to determine our 
own destiny. At any moment we are in danger 
of losing this privilege of choice. We read that, 
"in the palace at Versailles, as if by the irony of 
fate, is a famous statue of Napoleon in exile. 
His noble brow is lowered in thought, his mouth 
is compressed, his chin is resting upon his breast, 
and his grand eye gazes into space as if fixed on 
some distant scene. There is something inex- 
pressibly sad in that strong, pale face. It is said 
that the sculptor represented Napoleon at St. Hel- 
ena, just before his death. He is looking back 



INDIFFERENTISM 209 

upon the field of Waterloo, and thinking how its 
fatal issue was the result of three hours' delay. 
Those three short hours seem ever to write on the 
walls of his memory : 'the summer is ended, the 
harvest is past.' Years rolled on, but the memory 
of that neglected opportunity follows the great 
emperor through his life, and haunts him through 
midnight hours in his sea-girt home." Will not 
many others have an experience similar to this 
on the distant shores of eternity? After the 
battles of life have all passed, after centuries have 
rolled away, memory still lives. Tacitus once ex- 
claimed : "O fearful power of memory, that can 
give life back again, though only on its bier, life 
that ran through the years as through a sieve 
runs water, leaving nothing." Only memory, re- 
minding one of the precious times when golden 
opportunities were within easy reach, of the joys 
of heaven then so near, now so far ; only a sigh 
as bitter as despairing love, fills the solitude ; but 
it reaches no ear, it touches no sympathy, it 
awakens no response. Such is the vengeance of 
outraged love, of indifference to holy things, of 
neglected opportunities. O Christ, Son of the 
Living God, Embodiment of Love, Infinite Com- 
passion, Omnipotent Power, save us from such a 
destiny as this and Thine shall be the glory for- 
ever. 



CONSERVATISM, 
Or, Back to Our Bibles. 

Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of 
eternal life. John 6:68. 

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my 
path. The opening of Thy words giveth light. Psalm 
119:105 and 130, R. V. 

IT is not my purpose in this closing discourse 
on Isms, to waste your time and mine by con- 
sidering the claims of "Higher Criticism" ; 
though I have been asked by some to do so. Suf- 
fice it to say that the Church has no reason to fear 
the results of the criticisms of the Bible. And 
so long as the sixty or seventy "Higher Critics" 
are not agreed among themselves, and in fact no 
one of them holding the same views that he did 
a few years ago, thus making it easier for us to 
believe that in each individual case there are two 
"higher critics," than to believe there were two 
Isaiahs — so long as this is so, we had better 
leave the subject alone. The late Doctor A. J. F. 
Behrends, of Brooklyn, made a thoughtful exam- 
ination of the criticisms of the Bible, and shortly 
before his death published a book entitled "The 
Old Testament Under Fire." Among other 
things he said this of the higher critics : "The 



CONSERVATISM 211 

swords have broken at the hilt, and the lances 
have snapped in the hands of those who have 
hurled them. The Scriptures are coming out of 
the smoke and fury of the battle without a 
scar, and without the smell of fire upon their 
garments." In another connection, he says of the 
Bible : "It is represented as the fixed and im- 
movable center of Divine truth, forever settled 
in heaven. It provides the basis of an infallible 
certainty; just as the sun, by its invisible but 
constant and efficient energy, secures the sta- 
bility of the planetary system. Such a basis there 
must be somewhere, if our religious convictions 
and hopes are to be anything more than the crea- 
tions of individual and diseased fancy." Let us 
then come to our subject, in the conviction that 
the prophets and apostles knew more about the 
will of God and the Scriptures they wrote than 
the critics "who are on a still hunt for Elohists, 
and Jahvists, and Redactors." David, under the 
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said : "The stat- 
utes of the Lord are right." Right as to au- 
thenticity ; right as to history ; right in ethics ; 
right in doctrine. John, who knew the mind of 
his Master, said : "Thy Word is truth." Paul, a 
scholar among scholars, says : "Every scripture 
inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction which 
is in righteousness : that the man of God may be 
complete, furnished completely unto every good 



212 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

work." But, you say, these are simply declara- 
tions. How are we to know that the Bible is the 
product of the Infinite Mind ? 

The Bible Is Its Own Living Witness that It 
Came from God. — The Word of the Lord is not 
left to the mercy of our defenses. It does not 
need to be propped up with human arguments. 
It stands in the brightness of its own quenchless 
life. It breathes with the breath of the Holy 
Spirit. And what the breath of God has in- 
spired, the breath of man can not blow out. It 
moves forward from beginning to end with a 
sincerity of purpose, with a devoutness of spirit, 
with a majestic mission, with a unity amid di- 
versity which compels the conviction that it came 
from God. There is no other such book in the 
world. Like the sun, it shines with ancient and 
unborrowed ray. When we take into considera- 
tion the fact that the Bible was written by about 
forty men, whose lives covered a period of prob- 
ably sixteen hundred years ; when we think of its 
character, so grand in its revelations and so lov- 
ing in its spirit ; so sublime in its imagery, yet so 
plain and practical in its precepts ; shining as it 
does in the zenith of our modern civilization, 
studied, loved and revered by the best people in 
the world, translated into more than 240 lan- 
guages, circulated more widely than any hundred 
other books, — it is its own witness that it is the 
product of an Infinite and Superintending Mind. 



CONSERVATISM 213 

Our faith in it can not be a delusion, for we walk 
in its light and warmth as in that of the noonday 
sun. 

The Prophets and Apostles Disclaim Origin- 
ality. — For weak, sinful men, unaided by divine 
wisdom to have written such a book, so full of 
rebukes for their sins, abounding with such high 
ideals and sparkling with supreme wisdom, would 
have been more of a miracle than for God to 
clothe himself in human form and speak to hu- 
manity out of His own being. The writers of 
this book uniformly disclaim originality. One 
of the prophets says : "The Spirit of the Lord 
spake by me and His Word was in my tongue." 
Peter says : "The prophecy came not in old time, 
by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Spirit." Paul says : 
"I certify you, that the Gospel which was 
preached of me was not after man, for I neither 
received it of man, neither was I taught it, but 
by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Were these 
men dishonest? Were they impostors? If so, 
why did not the people in their day, or in the 
century following, prove that they were? The 
Christian fathers who immediately succeeded the 
apostles, refer to them as men who were divinely 
inspired. Clement of Rome says : "Give dili- 
gent heed to the scriptures, the true sayings of 
the Holy Spirit." Justin Martyr says : "I think- 
not that the words which you hear the prophet 



2i 4 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

speaking are uttered by himself ; being filled with 
the Spirit, they are from the Divine Logos which 
moves him." Origen says : "The Sacred Books 
breathe the fulness of the spirit. There is noth- 
ing in the law or in the gospels which did not 
descend from the Divine Majesty." Such state- 
ments might be multiplied, showing that the lead- 
ing thinkers and choicest spirits in the early days 
of Christianity felt that the apostles were what 
they claimed to be, the servants of God, who 
wrote as the Spirit moved them, and that such 
inspiration ceased with the last book of the New 
Testament, and that no man was to add to or take 
from the things written in this book of infallible 
authority. 

The Literary Character of the Bible. — When 
we take into consideration the scholarship of the 
men who wrote the Bible, its literary character 
is proof that it has God for its author. Where in 
the realm of literature can you find anything more 
grand than expressions like these: "The Lord 
hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, 
and the clouds are the dust of his feet." "He 
bowed the heavens also and came down, and 
darkness was under his feet." And again : "He 
looketh on the earth and it trembleth ; he toucheth 
the hills and they smoke ; who hath measured the 
waters in the hollow of his hand and meted out 
the heaven with a span ; and comprehended the 
dust of the earth in a balance, and weighed the 



CONSERVATISM 215 

mountains in scales/' While meditating deeply 
on the nature of God, David wrote these lines : 
"Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, or whither 
shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up 
into heaven, Thou art there ; if I take the wings 
of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts 
of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, 
and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, 
surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night 
shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth 
not from Thee." One of the minor prophets 
wrote these lines : "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord 
God of hosts ; the whole earth is full of His glory. 
Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and 
canst not look on iniquity." Concerning the 
judgment, John the Revelator writes: "And I 
saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, 
from whose face the earth and the heaven fled 
away ; and there was found no place for them. 
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand be- 
fore God ; and the books were opened : and an- 
other book was opened, which is the Book of Life. 
And the dead were judged out of those things 
which were written in the books, according to 
their works." Where did the prophets and apos- 
tles get such conceptions of the Deity, clothed 
with such elegant language, if they were not in- 
spired ? Sir William Jones, the greatest Oriental- 
ist of the eighteenth century, says : "I have care- 
fully and regularly perused the Holy Scriptures, 



216 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

and am of opinion that the volume, independent 
of its divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer 
morality and finer strains of eloquence, than can 
be collected from all other books, in whatever lan- 
guage they are written." Sir Walter Scott says : 
"Within this ample volume lies the mystery of 
mysteries. Happy they of human race, to whom 
their God has given grace, to read, to fear, to 
hope, to pray, to lift the latch, to force the way ; 
and better had they ne'er been born, that read to 
doubt, or read to scorn." 

The Fulfillment of Prophecy. — The fulfillment 
of prophecy is another most convincing evidence 
that the Bible is of divine origin. It is a book 
that deals with the future with as much exactness 
as with the present. It as easily foretells the 
future as it explains the past. It has predicted 
great events hundreds of years before they came 
to pass. Many of these prophecies have been 
literally fulfilled and the others certainly will be. 
Take for instance the prophecy concerning Baby- 
lon, 700 years before Christ. Isaiah said : "Baby- 
lon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the 
Chaldea's excellency, shall be as when God over- 
threw Sodom and Gomorrah; it shall never be 
inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from gener- 
ation to generation. Neither shall the Arab pitch 
his tent there, but the wild beasts of the land shall 
cry in their desolate houses and the dragons in 
their pleasant palaces." That prophecy has been 



CONSERVATISM 217 

literally fulfilled. For centuries Babylon has been 
the scene of desolation and ruin. Take the proph- 
ecy concerning Tyre. Although a great and pros- 
perous business center, Ezekiel predicted with 
minute exactness its coming desolation. "Thus 
saith the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, 
O Tyrus, and I will call many nations to come 
up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to 
come up, and they shall destroy the walls of 
Tyrus, and break down her towers. I will also 
scrape her dust from her and make her like the 
top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spread- 
ing of nets in the midst of the sea; for I have 
spoken it, saith the Lord God, and it shall be- 
come the spoil of nations. I will bring upon 
Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. They 
shall break down thy walls and destroy thy pleas- 
ant houses ; thou shalt be built no more." What 
is the result? Tyre has been completely de- 
stroyed and never rebuilt. Many more predic- 
tions might be cited which have been exactly ful- 
filled. Could man unaided thus foresee things to 
come? What man in the United States today 
can predict with absolute certainty who will be 
president of this republic in 1920? Yea, who 
can foretell with certainty who will be president 
in 1905? We can guess; but the prophets could 
tell with certainty, because they spake as they 
were moved by the spirit of God. 

The Adaptability of the Bible. — Another re- 



218 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

markable feature about this book is that it fits 
the human heart and mind. Unlike other books 
that grow old and die, the Bible, though written 
centuries ago, is as fresh and new as if written 
yesterday, with the ink scarcely dry on its pages. 
It is adapted to the deeper necessities of humanity 
in every age and condition of life. It has the 
same adaptation to the soul that the atmosphere 
has to the lungs. It is to this world, moving 
under the eclipse of sin, its rescue and light. 
Many have said, as did David centuries ago: 
"Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light unto 
my path. The opening of Thy Word giveth 
light." The Bible is the plain man's pathway to 
heaven. In it he finds peace for his conscience, 
comfort for his sorrow, a rock for his faith and 
weapons for his warfare. Doctor George C. 
Lorimer has said : "There is no position we oc- 
cupy, no relationship we sustain, no serious issue 
we have to meet, concerning which we may not, 
if we will, obtain the fullest information ; neither 
is there any honest doubt springing from a 
troubled conscience, that has not its antidote in 
the affluent provisions of divine grace. If you 
would know how to approach and honor your 
Creator ; if you would realize the claims of Christ 
upon your faith and love ; if you would learn how 
to fulfill your obligations as parent, child, citizen 
or friend, and if you would understand how to 
live and die triumphantly, you have but to con- 



CONSERVATISM 219 

suit the Sacred Volume whose pages glow with 
simplest wisdom and with safest counsels." 
There is no power of the human personality, 
whether of intellect, sensibility or will, to which 
the Bible does not appeal. Man is a spiritual 
being, and he must have communion with God 
who is a spirit. As the seashell ever carries with 
it the rhythm of the ocean waves in which it was 
born, so man in the midst of his deep depravity 
carries in his heart a perpetual sigh for God. 
His very misery is a cry for mercy, his blindness 
the prayer : "Lord that I might receive my 
sight." All human devisings fail to meet these 
longings of the soul. But we turn to the Bible, 
the grand old book that has been for so long a 
time sending forth streams of- living water for 
the healing of the nations, and we find a balm for 
the soul, a remedy that cures the wounded spirit. 
To men who are bewildered without a clue to 
guide them in the dreary labyrinth of sin, Christ 
says : "I am the way, the truth and the life ;" 
and to the ten thousand wants that lift up their 
voices and send their cry to the heavens he re- 
sponds : "Whosoever eateth of the bread that 
I shall give him shall never hunger." And we 
are surrounded by a multitude of witnesses who 
have tasted and seen and know that the Bible 
does what it claims to do. Consequently the wis- 
dom of the Bible is justified of her children. 
There is a self-evidencing power in the believer's 



220 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

heart that the world knows nothing about. The 
believer knows by experience that when he 
touched the covenant promise of God, the fire of 
the Holy Spirit kindled upon the altar of his 
heart, and holy impulses permeated his very be- 
ing. Such a man may have no other argument, 
but this is enough for him. Of the witness of 
logic and antiquity and history and prophecy he 
may know but little. He may never have read 
the writings of a Paley, or the analogies of a 
Butler. But he knows that the Bible has spoken 
to him as no other book has done, that it fits his 
case, that it has led him to repentance and faith 
and salvation from sin ; arid this after all is the 
strongest argument that any man can produce in 
support of the claims of the Word of God. 

Furthermore, we must think of man as a child 
of sorrow and in his sorrow he must have con- 
solation. All the world over, the refuge of men 
in times of affliction and sorrow is their religion. 
Where can we go for comfort, when sickness 
comes, when the grave covers our dead, and we 
wander aimlessly in the broken household? I 
must have comfort or I shall die. It is then that 
the Bible is peculiarly adapted to our wants. It 
teaches us to say, "God is our refuge and 
strength, a very present help in trouble." It 
says : "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." It 
says : "I will bind up the broken and the contrite 
heart." It says : "As I live, ye also shall live." 



CONSERVATISM 221 

It says : "Our light afflictions which are but for 
a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding 
and eternal weight of glory." And the soul re- 
sponds : "Blessed be the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and the God of all comfort, 
who comforteth us in all our tribulations." O 
blessed book of consolation ! Thou hast com- 
forted many a stricken father and weeping 
Rachel. Thou hast alleviated many a heartache 
and many a tear. Thou hast converted cloud into 
sunshine, and sorrow into joy. Do you tell me 
that such a book, so admirably adapted to the 
wants of the human mind and heart, is not the 
product of an Infinite Mind which alone could 
anticipate these wants and provide the antidote 
for them? Do you undertake to overthrow this 
book in which my penitent heart has buried its 
sorrows and found its pardon? It can not be 
done. The Bible is a book that has come to stay 
and live in the hearts of its devotees. You might 
just as well undertake to turn back the tide of 
time, or to put your hand on the sun to cause it 
to cease to shine, as to overthrow the Bible. As 
one has fittingly said : "The Bible is a book 
which has been refuted, demolished, overthrown, 
and exploded more times than any other book I 
ever read or read about. Every little while some- 
body starts up and upsets this book ; but it is like 
upsetting a solid cube of granite. It is just as big 
one way as the other. And when you have upset 



Z22 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

it, it is right side up still. Every little while 
somebody blows up the Bible ; but when it comes 
down, it always lights on its feet and runs faster 
than ever through the world." 

The Influence of the Bible Easily Traced. — 
How true it is that the Bible amid all the fiery 
criticisms of men has run and is yet running 
through the world. And not only so. Its in- 
fluence on individual, domestic and national prog- 
ress, in knowledge, virtue and freedom, can easily 
be traced. It is a book that lifts. The beneficent 
results which it has achieved and the type of 
character it has produced, are convincing evi- 
dences that it has God for its author and salva- 
tion for its end. It has largely determined the 
course of history and of civilization. Lecky, in 
his history of European morals, says : "The 
Bible has carried morality to the sublimest point 
attained or attainable by humanity." Do not the 
facts in the case bear him out in this statement? 
When we compare the moral and intellectual at- 
mosphere of nations blessed with Bible influences 
with heathen nations, the contrast is as startling 
as that between a green oasis with living foun- 
tains and lofty trees and blushing roses, and a 
barren desert of sand and stone. Look for a mo- 
ment at the morality and manhood of the world 
as it is today. There are five nations in the world 
that can fairly be called first-class powers. There 
are in the world, we will say, sixteen hundred 



CONSERVATISM 223 

millions of people. Of these about eleven hun- 
dred million are heathen and Mohammedans. 
Among all these heathen and Mohammedans, 
there is not a single nation that can be called a 
first-class power. Progressive Japan is rapidly 
coming to be a power among the nations ; but 
the Christian religion is contributing mightily to 
her progress. There are at present about three 
hundred million Greek and Roman Catholics. 
Of these three hundred million, there are two 
nations that may be called first-class powers, 
Russia for the Greek Catholics and France for 
the Roman Catholics. Three hundred million 
Catholics then have a manhood that exhibits a 
greater power among the nations than eleven 
hundred million heathen and Mohammedans. 
Leaving out of the consideration the Jews, scat- 
tered through the nations of the world, there are 
today about one hundred and fifty million Prot- 
estants. Of these one hundred and fifty million 
Protestants there are three first-class powers, 
England, the United States, and Germany. These 
are the three great Bible-reading nations of the 
world, with the largest percentage of regenerated 
citizenship. That which is born of God over- 
comes the world. From these three nations, — 
Bible-reading nations, — come about seventy-five 
per cent, of all the discoveries in the arts and 
sciences, and ninety per cent, of the world's 
moral progress, while along these lines the world 



224 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

is getting nothing from heathen and Moham- 
medan nations. Has the Bible anything to 
do with the progress of civilization? When 
a Pagan asked Queen Victoria the secret of 
England's national greatness, she handed him a 
Bible and said : "That is the secret of the great- 
ness of England." In the centennial letter, which 
the President of the United States addressed to 
the Sunday schools of America, he said : "To the 
influence of the Bible we are indebted for all the 
progress made in civilization." A Brahman said 
to a missionary : "What is it that makes the 
Bible have such power over the lives of those who 
embrace it? Our vedas have no such power." 
another Brahman asked : "What is it that makes 
this Bible give such nerve and courage to those 
who embrace it ; that produces such changes in 
their lives? In all our religious books there is 
nothing to compare with the Bible for purity, 
holiness, love and motives of action." Is there 
not something significant in these concessions? 
Has not the Bible always made the nations better, 
not worse? Has it not been the most potent 
factor in the upbuilding and ongoing of human- 
ity? In China today, we are informed, the 
scholars are studying the Bible, because they feel 
that we have a superior civilization and that the 
Bible is the secret of this superiority. What is 
the logical conclusion of these facts ? Either that 
the Bible is what it claims to be, a God-inspired 



CONSERVATISM 225 

and not a man-made book, or else a system of 
the most glaring falsehoods has done more for 
the elevation of the race, for the promotion of 
virtue and happiness, individual, domestic and 
national, than any system of truth ever has done 
or could do. Christendom is accounted for only 
by Christianity, and Christianity has accom- 
plished too much to have been an institution of 
human authority. 

The Best Thought of the World is on the Side 
of the Christian Religion. — Not only does hu- 
manity attain its best under the influence of the 
Bible but the best thought of the world is on the 
side of the Christian religion. The great thinkers 
in the great nations believe in God, and Christ 
and immortality. The great statesmen, the great 
poets, the great artists, the great educators, the 
great reformers, as well as the great preachers, 
believe in God and the Bible. Doctor P. S. Hen- 
son once said: "There is one man whose name 
shines so resplendent, and whose form towers so 
colossal, that no American or Englishman, with 
any pretensions to intelligence, will undertake 
to charge him with littleness or narrowness or 
want of thorough knowledge of the burning 
questions of our times. He was not only a states- 
man of magnificently massive proportions, but a 
scholar of the broadest scope and ripest culture. 
If it be said that he was not a specialist, we have 
only to say that he could have swallowed a whole 



226 ISMS, FADS AND FAKES 

menagerie of Lilliputian specialists and never 
have known that he had had a meal. The name 
is that of William E. Gladstone, whose feet were 
unshaken amid the wild surges of modern unbe- 
lief." His work entitled, "The Impregnable Rock 
of Scripture," shows where he stood religiously. 
He was only one of the great thinkers who not 
only believed in the Bible but worshiped at the 
feet of Christ. They came to the Bible for their 
inspiration and best endeavors. When Milton 
would become a poet, soaring in the high regions 
of his fancy, he must go to the Bible for his 
loftiest theme. The music of Silva's brook, that 
flowed fast by the oracle of God, lends its charm 
to his lofty verse. When Raphael would become 
an artist, the greatest perhaps the world has ever 
known, he must ascend the holy mount, stand 
in supernal glory and gaze on the transfigura- 
tion. The noblest strains in Cowper's Task draw 
their inspiration and part of their imagery from 
the prophecies of Isaiah. Wordsworth's Ode on 
Immortality never could have been written but 
for Paul's 15th of 1st Corinthians and 8th of 
Romans. Shakespeare's conception of woman, 
of a Desdemona, of an Ophelia, would have been 
impossible perhaps had not his great brain been 
permeated with a Bible idea. In fact, it would 
be no more foolish for a man to write a treatise 
on astronomy and leave out the sun, than for a 
man to leave the Bible out of his education. The 



CONSERVATISM 227 

pure white light of intellect is impossible except 
it kindle its torch at the Cross of Calvary. 
Ine man who does not believe in and obey the 
Word of God, who does not believe in missions, 
home and foreign, who is not doing his part in 
sending the glad tidings to the ends of the earth, 
is out of harmony with the best thought of the 
world and out of tune with the Infinite. 

Then, amid the clashings of human thought, 
the various isms advocated by men, the fiery 
criticisms through which the word of God has 
passed and is passing — let us maintain an unfal- 
tering faith in the Bible, in which for centuries the 
woe of earth has found its comfort and the de- 
spair of earth its hope ; the book which has struck 
the shackles from slaves and redeemed mankind 
from bondage ; the book which has contributed 
so much to the advancement of civilization ; the 
book in whose cheering promises men and women 
have gone to martyrdom as heroes and heroines ; 
the book from whose pages, all radiant with the 
light of heaven, look forth, "glorious with majes- 
tic sweetness and tender with ineffable love," the 
faces of God our Father and Jesus Christ our 
Savior and Lord. 



MAR 1 7 1904 



ill 



